Reality Check
by NongPradu
Summary: After a bad hunt, Dean wakes up to find that nothing is as it should be. Rubber rooms and padded walls, with no hope of escape, unless he can convince Sam that he's not crazy.
1. Chapter 1

One of the worst things about sleeping in cheap motels or squatting in abandoned or vacant houses was that one could never quite get used to the feel of the mattress that one sank into to meet oblivion every night at the end of an exhausting hunt. And this bed sucked. Dean tossed in his sleep, willing his eyes to remain closed in spite of the discomfort settling into his bones, the cramping seizing up behind his shoulders, and the fuzzy haze that settled like a fog over his mind. He was tired – it felt like he hadn't slept in years – but his mind refused to still.

The hunt had been brutal. Dean still remembered the heart-chilling grunt of pain that had been squashed from Sam's lungs as the Black Dog had tackled him to the ground. It had taken everything Dean had in him to pry the beast off, and that was after he had fired countless silver rounds into the damned thing. It had clung cruelly and tenaciously to life, and to Sam. But in the end Dean had prevailed, had somehow managed to snap the thing's neck, releasing its putrid, dead weight onto his unconscious brother.

Dean listened in the darkness for the sound of his brother's breathing in the next bed, wanting to take solace in the steady, reassuring inhaling and exhaling of breath. Silence met his straining ears. He couldn't hear Sam breathing.

"Sam," Dean whispered. "Sammy, can you hear me?"

Sam did not reply.

Dean's heart caught in his throat. Sam had been injured on the hunt – had blacked out after the initial impact of the ravaging beast – but had regained consciousness shortly thereafter. He had insisted that he didn't need a doctor. Now that Dean could no longer hear the sounds of his brother's snores or even of his breathing, he thought that foregoing the trip to the hospital had been a big mistake.

He opened his eyes.

"What the hell?"

White walls. White walls, white floor, white ceiling, white sheets… Dean rubbed at his eyes, trying to banish what he assumed must be a dream or a nightmare. He wasn't in their motel room at all. He was lying on a single hospital bed that was nailed to the floor, the only bed that was in the room. The only object that was in the room. And he was decidedly and most definitely alone.

"Sam?" Dean called out, confused and mildly panicked. He tore off the sheets and stepped out of bed, noting with mounting trepidation that he was clothed in gray hospital pants and a white t-shirt.

"Ok, what the hell?" Dean muttered.

Had he been injured? Had he somehow remembered the attack wrong? Had the Black Dog turned on him after he shot it? He ran a hand tentatively over his chest, stomach, along the small of his back, over his legs, but there were no tender spots, no cuts or bruises or signs of injuries. He felt his head for any signs of pain, but there were none. How long had he been in the hospital? He tried to clear the fog from his mind, but his thoughts were churning slowly, sluggishly.

"Sam?" Dean called, real panic welling up within him now. If he had himself been attacked, then it meant he hadn't been able to save Sam.

"Sammy!" Dean called again, stepping onto the cold tiled floor and crossing to the door.

Something wasn't right. The door to his room was solid steel and had a tiny window set a little too high for his comfort. When he tried to pull the door open it would not budge. It was locked.

"Ok, seriously, what the hell?" Dean asked angrily. He raked his fingers through his hair in irritation and pounded on the door.

"Hello?" he called. "What's with locking the door?"

He peeked through the window on the door but could only see what looked like a dim, gray corridor beyond. He looked as far to the left and then to right as he could through the window but could see no signs of any doctors or nurses moving around the hallway beyond his room.

"Hello?" he called again. "Hey!" He pounded on the door. "Hey!"

His mind tried telling him where he was, but he buried it deeply in a heap of denial. No. No, he was definitely not _there_. There had to be some kind of mistake. This could be explained, somehow.

"HEY!" he shouted again, swallowing the burgeoning panic within and pounding on the door again with more urgency. "Open the freakin' door!"

At last he heard footsteps. He peeked through the tiny window and saw a large, heavy-set man who Dean assumed was an orderly of some kind, followed by a middle-aged doctorly-looking man, and then another orderly. _Oh God, the welcome wagon_.

The first orderly retrieved a key from a ring that hung from his belt and unlocked the door. Dean stepped back a bit as all three men stepped in from the hallway.

"Good morning, Mr. Winchester," the doctor said kindly, softly. "I'm Dr. Walpole. We met last night. Do you remember me?"

Dean's hands went slightly cold at the man's patronizingly calm demeanour, because try as he might, he could not remember having met him. The two orderlies stood flanking him, and Dean tensed reflexively.

"I got here last night?" Dean asked sceptically. It frightened him that he couldn't remember how he'd gotten here. That kind of threw his whole prolonged-hospital stay theory all to hell.

"That's right," Dr. Walpole assured him. Dean noticed that his kindly smile didn't touch his eyes. He repressed a shudder. "Your father had you transferred here. Do you remember being at the other hospital?"

"Dad?" Dean asked. God, it had been months since he'd seen his dad. He and Sam had been looking for so long. "Dad had me transferred? What?"

He was so confused, and the doctor and orderlies were looking at him with shared looks of pity and practiced patience. It made him want to scream.

"Where's Sam?" Dean demanded. "He was injured, and I need to know that he's ok."

The doctor pulled a clipboard from behind his back and ran his cold eyes over whatever documents it held.

"Sam, that's your brother, is it?"

"Yeah, my brother," Dean said. "Where is he?"

"He's fine," Dr. Walpole assured him. "In fact, your father promised last night that he and your brother would be coming by today to see you. Won't that be nice?"

There were bars on the window. Cold crept up his insides and squeezed at his heart with a vicelike grip when Dean realized that there were bars on the window to his room.

Nothing made sense. He tried to suppress the crushing wave of panic washing over him, but the calm centre, that solid rock within himself that he so readily tapped into when he was frightened or upset, seemed to have been crushed by some unseen force. He couldn't make sense of what was happening, where he was, or why he was there, and the feeling of isolation, of being completely lost, was crippling.

Had he been arrested? Had the police somehow caught up with him for the whole St. Louis murder thing? Had he somehow confessed the whole truth about the Shapeshifter and the hunting gig, only to be landed in a mental hospital? It was the only explanation that he could think of to account for what appeared to be his current situation. But then, why couldn't he remember getting here?

"When?" Dean asked, his voice feeling suddenly like sandpaper being scraped over gravel. "When will they be here?"

"Soon," the doctor assured him. "But before they get here, we need you to take your meds, ok?" When Dean made to protest he cut him off. "Let's not have a repetition of what happened last night. Just be a good boy, Dean, and take your meds. Then you can see your dad and your brother. Ok? You see them after you take your meds, not before."

He held out a tiny, waxy paper cup full of many and varied coloured pills.

Dean laughed uncomfortably.

"You gotta be kiddin' me," he said. "I'm not taking those. No way."

"Dean, we've been through this," the doctor warned.

"If I take those, you're all gonna think I'm crazy." He found himself smiling in spite of the helplessness that he felt. "I know, you already think I'm crazy… But I'm not. But those pills? I know what they do. They make patients all twitchy and jerky and paranoid. And dopey."

"If you don't take them, you don't get to see your family today," the doctor assured him.

"But I'm calm," Dean promised, making sure to keep his voice calm in spite of his frustration and fear and confusion. "See? I'm calm. I'm not foaming at the mouth or howling at the moon or hearing voices or anything. I'm just… I just need to see my family."

"As soon as you take your meds."

Dean clenched his fists and forced himself to take a deep, calming breath. He could feel the orderlies' eyes taking in his every move.

"Why am I here?" Dean asked. His fear was giving way to anger and his frustration was building to a breaking point. "You can't just freakin' keep me here for no reason. And you can't make me take that crap if I don't want to."

"The State says that we can," the doctor said coolly.

"The State?" Anger giving way to fear and panic again. "I don't understand…"

"You killed people, Dean. You're dangerous to yourself and to others."

The four walls of the empty room felt like they were closing in. Dean stared dumbly at Dr. Walpole, trying to process his words. _You killed people, Dean. You killed people, Dean. You killed people, Dean_. He thought if he could just make his mind work, he could remember how he got here. He needed to remember something, anything, about last night. There had been the Black Dog, and Sam had been hurt. He remembered going to sleep in his bed at the motel.

"What day is it?" Dean asked in a whisper.

"It's Tuesday," the doctor replied.

"But what's the date?" Dean pressed. Had time passed while Dean had been in some kind of medicated fog? Had he 'lost time' in some kind of psychotic episode?

"February 9th, 2006."

_Fuck_. He definitely wasn't losing time, and definitely had not missed the last several months in a drug-induced blur. He was sure that when he'd gone to sleep in the motel it had been February 8th, 2006. Something had gone terribly wrong. Maybe this was just a dream. He pinched himself hard on the arm, trying to wake himself up, but the reddening flesh between his fingers, and the sting his pinching produced felt all too real.

Dean swallowed hard, rubbing his fingers along the insides of his palms and clenching his fists, trying to warm them against the cold that was taking over his body. He needed to think. He needed to have some kind of plan. Whatever was happening to him, he had to keep his head clear so he could figure out a way out of here. And most importantly, he had to talk to his father and brother.

"Have we calmed down?" Dr. Walpole asked tentatively, his patronizing tone earning him a steely green-eyed scowl from his patient.

"I told you I'm calm, assface," Dean said. "I just need to see my dad and my brother."

The doctor shook his head sadly and extended his hands at his sides in an obvious 'my hands are tied' gesture.

"Not until you take your meds. This doesn't have to be hard, Dean. Just take your meds, and then you can see them. They should be arriving shortly. In fact, they're probably here now."

He extended the tiny cup of pills toward Dean.

"Just take your meds, and you can go see them. I promise."

Dean hesitated. He looked at the two orderlies, who were still flanking the doctor protectively, each looking ready to pounce if Dean were to make one wrong move. He thought if he had to he could probably take them both out, but considering where he was, and the types of drugs they had on hand to jab into their more agitated patients to make them docile and slack-jawed, he decided he'd better not risk it.

"I really don't need those," Dean assured all three of them. "Look at me. I'm lucid, I'm… I'm coherent and speaking in complete sentences."

"Dean –" the doctor began.

"I'm not hearing voices or seeing things," Dean pressed. "Please, doc, I just need to talk to my family with a clear head. Those meds will mess me up. I just need to talk to my family with a clear head."

Dr. Walpole shook his head sadly.

"So you can tell them about the ghosts and the demons?" he asked. "You want to be alert and lucid so you can tell your father and your brother about all those creatures that go bump in the night – the ones that you hunt? Is that it?"

So they knew. Somehow they knew, and they obviously, and understandably, didn't believe him. Was this why he had been locked up? Dean felt so cold on the inside his hands began to tremble. But heat was rising in his face. He had to choke back the bile that surged up his throat as a wave of nausea slapped into him. This was what a belly-flop into Hell felt like.

"Please," Dean pleaded softly, unsure now who he was pleading to. "I just… just need to talk to them. Please?"

"I've told you Dean," the doctor said in that same calm, patronizing voice. "You can see them just as soon as you take your meds."

"No."

"You don't want to see them?" He tilted his head to the side, a classic gesture of piqued curiosity. Dean was like some kind of experiment to be observed. He lifted his clipboard and scribbled something down.

"Of course I want to see them," Dean said emphatically. "Just no drugs."

"The drugs are part of your treatment," the doctor said coldly. "You're a danger to yourself and to the people around you. You're a danger to my staff. You need to be sedated so that everyone's safe. So that you're safe, and so that your visitors are safe, and so that the hospital staff are safe. Ok?"

"Please," Dean pleaded. "I don't need to be sedated. I'll be good. I'll be calm. I promise!"

"Dr. Walpole, he's not going to take them," the larger of the two orderlies said soberly.

"Hey why don't you shut the hell up, Tiny?" Dean snapped. "Go find yourself a bedpan to clean or somethin'. No one's talkin' to you."

The doctor sighed heavily and gave a curt nod to the two orderlies, who immediately stepped forward toward Dean. He watched as they stalked toward him, their arms held out at their sides readying to grab at him to restrain him. But Dean had no intention of going down without a fight.

He easily side-stepped the larger man's outstretched arms and struck hard with a jab to the man's gut. A second pair of hands grabbed him from behind, but he spun so fast the man could not hold his grip, giving Dean a chance to strike hard with an upper-cut that shattered the man's nose in a spray of blood and a howl of pain. Dr. Walpole had backed away against the wall, leaving Dean ample room to rush past him and out the door, but he didn't make it very far. The doctor was screaming for help and before Dean had made it three steps beyond the door he saw two more orderlies and a security guard stalking toward him.

"Crap!" Dean muttered harshly, turning to run in the other direction. He made a mad dash down the hall, nearly crashing into a nurse as she rounded the corner with a tray of medication cups like the one Dr. Walpole had been trying to foist onto him.

"Stop!" a voice cried behind him, but Dean kept running.

He knew even as he ran that it was pointless. There wouldn't be a way out of a place like this without having some kind of key card or swipe pass. The exits would all be secured against patients escaping. And there would be more orderlies and more security guards and more doctors coming after him to prevent him leaving, but fear and sheer stupid will kept his feet moving. With each step he denied whatever cruel twist of fate that had landed him here. With each step he told himself '_this isn't real_.' With each step he suppressed his feelings of despair and confusion; with each step he clung to his sanity and told himself that this was all a lie, and the life he had left behind somewhere – that was real.

A figure crashed sidelong into him, knocking him to the ground with a grunt as the air was forced from his lungs. Dean kicked with his knee, forcing the person off of him as he rolled to his side and scrambled to his feet. A hand caught him by the ankle, pulling him back and tripping him. Then a body came crashing down on top of him. Then another. He flailed wildly with his arms, catching someone in the jaw with a yelp of pain, until someone managed to pin his arms down. He fought vainly against the weight on top of him, trying to kick out with his legs, but innumerable hands had him pinned to the ground. He counted at least six faces twisted in grunts of extreme exertion as they struggled to hold him in place. If he hadn't been so terrified he might even have felt proud at the difficulty they were having.

"All right now," Dr. Walpole's voice said, patronizing and calm and attempting to be soothing. "Just calm down. Everything's going to be fine."

Dean observed through the sea of heads that Dr. Walpole was approaching, a syringe held aloft in his hand, and something like a satisfactory smirk on his face. The bastard was loving this.

"You sonovabitch!" Dean hissed, redoubling his efforts to get away. "You stay the hell away from me!"

Dr. Walpole smiled and came forward, keeping the syringe within Dean's line of sight. He watched as those steely green eyes opened wide in fear, shock, denial, and horror, and paused to allow his patient to react.

"Everything's going to be fine," he said soothingly. "Shhh."

"No!" Dean cried, watching as the doctor lowered the needle toward his thigh. "No! Nononono!"

It pricked into his skin with a pinch, jabbing into the muscle and sending warm shooting sensations through his flesh as the doctor pressed the plunger, the drugs coursing into him with lightening speed. The effect was almost instant. Dean felt his heart falter for a moment, his breathing changing. The world swam as his body suddenly became very heavy. He felt himself sinking into the floor, his limbs slack and unresponsive to his own commands.

"No," he mumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Take him back to his room," Dr. Walpole instructed. "Put him in restraints. We're not taking any chances."

Through the fog, and the numbness and the vast chasm between where Dean was and where the rest of the world seemed to be, he felt hands seize him and lift him. He was being dragged down the hall but he could do nothing to fight back. His body refused to move, and his mind was so sluggish he had to struggle to remain conscious. But he knew, even through the dim haze of oblivion, that things were about to get so much worse.

888

The waiting area was very quiet. A clock on the wall ticked loudly and Sam tried to ignore it as he sat, his leg beating out a steady rhythm that was out of time with the ticking on the wall above. Empty chairs in a bleak, gray room with overly bright fluorescent lights were the only company that he and his dad had while they waited. The receptionist down the hall had told them that the doctor would be there to greet them shortly. Then they'd be able to go see Dean.

He didn't want to be here. It was selfish, and cruel, but Sam Winchester did not want to be here. Hospitals always made him feel very anxious, and mental hospitals even more so. At least the last place Dean had been at had felt more like a home than this. This was like a prison – a bleak, sanitized, maximum security prison, with nurses and orderlies instead of correctional officers. And instead of jeers and catcalls and eye-fucks from the inmates, there were sobs, moans, cries of anguish and loss and dire warning that the end of the world was coming, the aliens had invaded, the CIA were poisoning the coffee at Starbucks.

"Something's not right," John Winchester observed uneasily, shifting in his seat. "The doc should have been here almost an hour ago."

"He'll be here Dad," Sam assured him. "He probably got caught up with one of the other patients."

John made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat.

"Well it's awfully rude to just leave us waiting here," he grumbled. "Some people have lives and jobs and can't sit around all day waiting."

"Shhh," Sam admonished. "Dad, he'll be here soon. Just calm down."

It was always a mistake to tell John Winchester to calm down. The surly ex-marine was used to being the one to call the shots, and he had no patience whatsoever to be told what to do by his youngest son. But Sam knew that he had to be kept in line, and that his anger had to be toned down if they were going to be allowed to see Dean. The doctors were always so insistent that they had to be calm when they talked to Dean, so as not to upset him.

"It's just you came all this way," John complained. "And I took time off work."

He scrubbed a weary hand over his face. It was always like this. Sam watched his dad, watched the pain behind his eyes as he stared ahead through the seat cushion in front of him, watched those angry dark eyes boring into it, as though seeing through it, with a deep sadness welling up behind them. He always got like this when he came to visit Dean. It was like an exercise in torture.

At last the approach of footsteps signalled that the doctor had arrived. John and Sam stood as one, readying themselves to follow, but they could both tell from the doctor's hesitant steps, his hand-wringing, his lack of eye contact, that something was wrong.

"John Winchester?" the doctor asked. "Sam Winchester?"

The doctor, Sam observed, was of medium height with dark, almost black hair, and thick, dark eyebrows. His face was long and slightly drawn, as though it had been stretched to a point at his chin.

"Yeah," John replied curtly. "You're Dr. Walpole, I presume. We're here to see Dean."

"Yes, well, about that…" He coughed uncomfortably. "I'm afraid that won't be possible."

"What?" John demanded sharply.

"There was an incident," the doctor explained. "Your son attacked four of our orderlies – broke a man's nose – and had to be heavily sedated and restrained. He's not fit to see anyone at the moment, I'm afraid. Maybe in a day or two?"

"That's bullshit!" John barked. "I came here to see my boy. I want to see my son. Now."

"I'm afraid that's impossible," the doctor protested mildly.

"What happened?" Sam asked. He laid a firm but reassuring hand on his father's shoulder to try to calm him.

"He attacked four of our orderlies," Dr. Walpole explained again. "We came into his room to give him his medication, and when he refused he had an episode and attacked two of the orderlies that were with me. Then he attempted to escape and attacked two more. His outburst was not only damaging to the staff, it caused an uproar among the patients who heard the struggle."

"Well can we please just see him?" Sam suggested. "We don't have to go in and talk to him. If we could just pass by his room and take a quick look at him? I came all the way from California. And Dad really needs to see him."

John smiled sadly at his son and then looked at the doctor hopefully, expectantly.

"I suppose that would be all right," Dr. Walpole said with a sigh. "I can bring you by his room to get a quick look at him. I understand that after the transfer and everything, you probably just want to see for yourselves that he's adjusting and is ok."

"I just need to see him," John said thickly.

Doctor Walpole led them past the reception area to a large door that could only be opened with a magnetized keycard. It opened with a loud buzz and admitted all three into a long corridor beyond. The same bleak gray paint and stark yellow lights met their eyes, and Sam had to resist the shudder that crept up his spine. He couldn't imagine staying in a place like this, and felt a stab in his heart at the thought of poor Dean being caged here like an animal. No matter what he had done, the reality of this place had to be a nightmare for him.

They passed through another secured door to the same loud buzzing, and then another, until they had reached the wing where Dean was housed. Sam could feel his palms getting sweatier with each step he took. Dean had had to be sedated and restrained. That meant he would be looking in on a vegetable tied to a bed – a vegetable that was his big brother. He choked back the lump in his throat and blinked past the tears misting up his eyes.

Seeing it was somehow worse than imagining it. A heavy steel door with a small window to peek through allowed Sam an unobstructed view into Dean's room. He was lying on a small, single bed, his arms and legs held in thick leather restraints, his head lolling to the side and his eyes staring vacantly ahead. The image that assaulted his eyes was rending his heart: the solid, well-formed muscles of Dean's arms and chest, thighs and calves, such striking proofs of his strength and grace, were now slack, limp, and useless. Those intense green eyes, alight with mischief, passion, fire, anger, love, or any other emotion Sam could conceive of, were dull and lifeless, looking ahead but seeing and registering nothing. The prone figure lying in abject misery before him was a perfect, cruel image of strength beaten down, beauty caged, vitality and fire snuffed out.

Sam stepped aside, suddenly unable to breathe, and allowed his father to wallow in the horrific image through the window in peace. He watched his father's face crumble in grief as he looked in through that window, looked in on the horror-show that had become Dean's life. Doubt, grief, despair, and hopelessness washed over John Winchester's face like different flashing colours of a strobe light. And Sam could do nothing to salve his hurt. It was a pain that could find no release or peace.

"I need to speak with you in private," Dr. Walpole said quietly. "About the next round of treatment for your son."

John coughed past the tears and attempted to collect himself. He drew his sorrowful brown eyes away from the window and nodded his acknowledgment. After what felt like hours they found themselves seated in Dr. Walpole's office.

"I won't lie to you," Dr. Walpole said frankly. "Dean's transition to this facility has not been smooth. He only just arrived last night and he has already had two violent outbursts."

"It's this place," John explained. "Dean doesn't do well in confined spaces. And he really doesn't like bein' alone. If we could just stick around until he wakes up, and go talk to him, I know he'd feel better. The move must have confused him."

"Yes, well," the doctor said. "I have my staff to think about. Their safety is my primary concern at this point. I will not have a repetition of what happened at the Stafford Institute."

"He would never have hurt those people on purpose!" John said, his voice warbled with emotion. "Dean's not a bad kid. He just gets confused… and then he gets scared and he tries to defend himself…"

"Dad…" Sam interrupted, laying a comforting hand on his dad's knee.

"…but he'd never hurt anyone on purpose," John went on. "He's got a big heart. And he thinks he's saving people."

"Yes, I understand that, Mr. Winchester," Dr. Walpole said calmly. "But his delusions are dangerous. People have died – innocent people. And those two Stafford guards."

"He didn't mean it," John insisted, sounding so broken. "If he'd been himself… If he were in his right mind, he never… He'd never hurt anyone."

Dr. Walpole nodded sagely.

"But Dean isn't in his right mind," he said. "And we have to decide how we're going to proceed to make him well again, or at the very least, how to keep the rest of us safe from him. I think that we should resume with the electroshock therapy treatment. According to Dr. Borgstrum's notes, the treatment seemed to be having a very positive effect."

"NO!" John insisted. "Last time you crazy bastards used the electroshock treatment Dean stopped talking for a month. No. No." He shook his head resolutely, desperately.

"I don't need your permission," Dr. Walpole said quietly. "The State has placed your son in my care. I have the authority to choose whatever treatments I think best suit the circumstances. But I would like to decide on a course of action that we can all be comfortable with."

"No electroshock," John said adamantly. "Try something else. More therapy sessions. More counselling. If you had the right doctor talking to him, I know you could get through to him. Maybe a female doctor – he likes women."

Dr. Walpole smirked and suppressed a laugh.

"Yes, well, he does at that," he said, coughing uncomfortably. "And that was something else I wanted to discuss with you. Your son's sexual behaviour…"

John let out an exasperated sigh of irritation.

"That ain't my problem, Doc," he grumbled. "For God's sake, you've got the kid doped up and tied to a bed, and you're gonna try to convince me that him flirting with the nurses is a threat to national security?"

"Mr. Winchester, please," Dr. Walpole admonished. "Dean's sexual appetite is a real matter for concern."

"Why?" Sam asked, a knot forming in his stomach. "Is he dangerous?"

"No," Dr. Walpole admitted. "But we fear he'll have a distracting effect on our female staff members. According to Dr. Borgstrum's notes, as well as eyewitness accounts from Stafford, Dean had somehow managed to have sexual encounters with almost all of the female staff members, including two doctors and one therapist. On two separate occasions he was caught secreted away with a female visitor…"

John snorted with laughter.

"So he's got as much charm in this hell-hole as he had on the outside," John said, a real smile forming on his lips for the first time in weeks. "Doesn't sound like it's hurting anyone."

"We don't encourage sex addiction," Dr. Walpole said seriously. "Your son has a real problem."

"He's lonely," John supplied simply. "So he reaches out in the only way he knows how."

"Is this really a problem, doctor?" Sam asked. "I mean, I can see how you obviously wouldn't like it, but what exactly are we supposed to do about it?"

"He was famous for convincing the nurses to cease giving him his medication," Dr. Walpole intoned darkly. "He escaped twice from the high security wing and once was able to get outside the facility entirely. If one of the security guards hadn't been returning from his lunch hour to see him leaving the building he could still be on the loose right now."

John was trying very hard not to laugh, and Sam was almost inclined to join him. Leave it to Dean to flirt or sleep his way to escape from a mental institution.

"So what do you suggest we do then?" John asked at last.

Dr. Walpole was slow to answer. He watched John tentatively, as if deciding whether or not he should speak. He then looked to Sam to see if he could gauge what his reaction would be.

"I was thinking chemical castration."

888

It was a long, lonely drive back to Palo Alto. Sam's fists tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white from the strain, as he remembered the horrible visit with Dean's doctor. There was something about that Walpole jerk that didn't sit well with Sam. He seemed too cold, too appraising, as though he were more interested in scientific study than he was in helping his patients. Sam thought the man viewed his patients as lab rats, rather than as human beings, and that thought sat like a cold heavy stone in the pit of his stomach. The idea of his brother being in the legal guardianship of someone like that made him want to vomit.

His dad had adamantly and hysterically refused to allow the chemical castration, threatening to call on the powers of every god, government, and news agency he could think of to heap mighty judgment on Dr. Walpole and his staff if they were to ever attempt it.

"Please, not Dean!" he had pleaded. "You can't do that to Dean! It'll kill him!"

Walpole had been very reluctant to abandon that plan of action, but with John's desperate pleading and Sam's rational and well-argued points, they were able to talk him out of it for the time being. They would talk with Dean, they promised, and impress upon him the necessity of him being on his best behaviour. They would get through to Dean and he would behave. They promised.

But talking to Dean had been almost less than useless. When they had arrived two days after their initial visit, it was only to find Dean heavily sedated and barely able to sit up on his own. He had been propped up in a kind of cushy lounge chair, his head leaning heavily to the left side, and he was almost unable to speak. He tried, _God love him_. When he'd seen Sam and John approach him, his bleary eyes had become instantly dewy with warm, salty tears. He had reached out with a fumbling, trembling hand to grasp at his brother, pulling him close. Sam remembered the desperation of that hug, the quiet moan that escaped Dean as he felt the solid form of his Sammy in his arms, as he took in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of his shampoo and aftershave.

"We missed you the other day, kiddo," John had said kindly.

Dean had attempted a smile. "Assholes," he'd muttered, casting a tired glance over his shoulder to indicate the hospital staff.

Sam had laughed, his insides roiling with pain at Dean's stoicism. It was strange seeing him now, seeing him acting somehow like his old self. It had been obvious to Sam that Dean was struggling for clarity, struggling to both understand and be understood. He had been fighting so hard against the effects of the medication.

"So listen," Sam had said quietly. "You've gotta stay away from the nurses, ok?"

Dean had grinned wickedly, his eyes drooping but still twinkling, though dully.

"I mean it, Dean," Sam had admonished. "Promise us you'll leave the nurses alone. Don't give the doctors more reason to be pissed at you, ok?"

Dean had listened quietly, processing Sam's words, chewing them over in his mind.

"They're going to do something terrible, aren't they?" he'd mumbled. "They told you?"

Sam and John had exchanged worried glances. Should they tell him? Would it throw him into another fit?

"That's just great," Dean had muttered.

The conversation had gone smoothly at first, though Dean had had a real difficult time staying conscious and following what his father and brother were saying to him. They could see him straining to pay attention, straining to process the information as it came to him. But the heavy fog of sedation cast such a shadow over him. He looked like one trying to drag himself back from the dead.

"You gotta get me out of here," he'd said, out of nowhere. "Just listen… just listen, ok? I don't belong in here. Whatever they're saying I did – I didn't do it. You gotta get me out of here."

"Dean," his father had said mildly. "Kiddo—"

"I don't belong in here," Dean had protested, the words tumbling out of his pouty, numb lips. "Sammy, please. Something's happened… I don't know what, but it isn't supposed to be like this."

"It's ok, Dean," Sam had assured him, that fire in his gut twisting again. "You've just got to get better. Take care of yourself in here and don't fight them. They can help you get better."

"They can't help me, Sam!" Dean had insisted. "This place is driving me crazy. I've only been here a coupla days and already I can feel it. I'm not supposed to be here."

"Dean—"

"I can't stay in that room," he'd gone on. "I can't stay in that tiny room, alone… It's killin' me Sam." He'd looked at their dad with pleading anguish in his eyes. "Dad, it's killin' me."

But what could they have done? Dean was dangerous. The only reason that he wasn't in jail serving a sentence for murder was that he was completely mentally unfit. The Stafford Institute had been his home for four years, until those guards had died and he'd been transferred here to a higher-security facility. There was no way that they could convince the doctors that he was sane enough to be released, let alone a Judge, and it would be impossible to break him out. So they had had to endure his desperate pleas for them to help him, had been forced to offer him useless platitudes about how things would get easier, when deep down they both knew that this place was the end of the line for Dean. He'd stay locked away at Golden Brook Asylum until his spirit finally broke and that fire in him went out.

Sam swallowed back the tears, trying to block out the pain, but they came unbidden, tumbling down his cheeks as his own feelings of helplessness threatened to overwhelm him. He couldn't help but think that it was his own decision to go to school that had pushed Dean over the edge. Dean had always been a bit of a loner, choosing to keep to himself (except with the ladies) and really only ever being close with his dad and brother. When Sam went away to go to school, something in Dean had changed. Something snapped. And then he had killed that girl, who he insisted was a demon, and he had been locked away ever since.

He wondered if there was any way he could have known. He thought he should have known. He and his brother had been so close growing up. Their dad so emotionally distant after their mom died, had spent almost all of his time at the garage, pouring himself into his business and all-but ignoring his two sons at home. Dean had taken care of Sam, had given him what little security he could provide, sheltering him from a world that didn't care about the two scared and lonely kids who needed a strong parent around to keep them safe. Dean had done that without complaint. So yes, Sam felt sure he should have noticed something was off. He should have somehow seen that Dean had become delusional, that in his role as protective big brother he had somehow created a fantasy world of demons and werewolves and poltergeists. He should have known and should have done something to help him before everything escalated. Before he turned his back and walked away… Before that poor girl got killed.

But he couldn't undo the past. He couldn't go back and ask Dean all the questions he should have asked four and a half years ago. He couldn't go back to see the cracks forming in his brother's mental health – couldn't stop their steady progression as the person Dean was crumbled away. He could only crouch before the ruin now and pick up the broken pieces.

Sam watched as headlights from oncoming traffic bore into his line of vision, blinked through the brightness, and stared numbly ahead in the afterglow as darkness enveloped the car once again. Soon he'd be home, where he would wrap his arms around Jessica and hold her until the world felt normal again. He so badly wanted to feel her in his arms, to feel her love and support and know that at least with her, things would be ok. Soon he'd be asking her the question – that time-honoured, girl-squealing question – and he knew that meant that he'd have to tell her about Dean. She didn't even know he had a brother, but if he was going to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him, he knew that he'd have to come clean about his family. He'd have to tell her about Dean.


	2. Chapter 2

As promised, here's the second installment. Most of this is already written, so you should be getting your updates pretty regularly. Thanks so much to everyone who submitted a review! I'm so glad you're enjoying this warped little world.

888

He didn't know how long he'd been here, but it already felt like years. Dad and Sam had been by to see him – God that had been a special kind of Hell, seeing them come and then seeing them leave – and Dad had been by twice more since then, but Dean hadn't had any luck in convincing him that he wasn't crazy. Whenever he brought up the whole hunting gig his dad got really quiet, as though he were only listening to humour his son, when really he didn't want to hear it or talk about it. Clearly, his dad thought he was stark raving mad.

That look of pity, of broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes, that John Winchester took with him to each meeting with Dean was enough to break Dean apart inside. Already he was beginning to question his grip on reality. Maybe none of the hunting stuff was real. Maybe what the doctors said was true. Maybe he had had some kind of psychotic break, had completely lost touch with reality, and had leapt headlong into a schizophrenic fantasy land of monsters and make-believe. Maybe he really had killed some poor innocent girl. Maybe he had killed those guards at the other institution.

But then, why couldn't he remember it? That was the part that gave him pause, made him think that he really did know what he was talking about, made him think that he really wasn't crazy. Dean knew that people having psychotic breaks could black out, could lose time, but he also knew that they didn't lose four years altogether, completely and totally. Dean had been somewhere else, in a different reality, while all of this stuff with killing that girl, being arrested, being found legally insane by a court Judge, being sentenced to a mental institution, had happened. He was now riding the tail end of a whirlwind that he had completely missed out on, only to find himself landed smack dab in the asshole of it.

There had to be a way out. In his heart of hearts he believed that there was. Something had happened, somehow he had been transported to this crappiest of crappy realities, but there had to be a way to go back. Someone or something had transported him here. And somehow, come Hell or high water, Dean was going to find a way to get back. He had to. Staying here, locked away in this white room, with the loneliness and the constant fog and the drugs, it would kill him as surely as a bullet to the brainpan. Only this kind of death was slow and torturous. He found himself resisting the urge to pray for that bullet.

After two more days of being strapped to his bed and injected with the heaviest sedatives imaginable, Dean had relented on the meds front – had begged Dr. Walpole to let him take the regular meds instead of the forced injections. At first he didn't think the sick bastard was going to let him; something in him seemed to enjoy seeing him so lost and so powerless. But the nurse had been there to see Dean begging, had urged the doctor to give Dean a chance to behave, and so Walpole had agreed, albeit begrudgingly, to let Dean administer his own poison with each swallowed cup full of coloured mind-numbing candy.

It was difficult to tell time while plodding through the thick fog of drug-induced stupidity. The antipsychotic drugs would be blocking the dopamine pathways to his brain, which he knew from somewhere in his memory meant that his brain was at half-mast. Everything felt delayed, as though he were on a different timeline than the world around him, and on a different timeline than his own body. Walking was sluggishly slow at first because his legs took so long to respond to the commands of his brain. And talking was laborious work – it took so long to process what was being said to him, and took even longer to form a response and then speak it aloud. Luckily, the nurses and orderlies and therapists were patient and, for the most part, kind. It was only that dick Walpole who seemed to get a kick out of seeing Dean struggle. His mouth would twist into a tight grin at the corners whenever he spoke to him.

After a few weeks his system became somewhat used to the drugs, though he still felt slightly delayed and sluggish. He knew his reaction-time wasn't near what it was supposed to be, but at least the fog was beginning to clear somewhat. Dean made a point of being as active as he could be, getting up to exercise in the morning by doing push-ups or jogging on the spot in his room. It kept his mind busy, kept his metabolism going, and pushed the drugs through his system faster. It had been hard to find the motivation to do it, but once his system began adjusting, his will to fight and to get out had eventually prevailed. Suddenly keeping himself strong and keeping his mind as sharp as possible had become a mission. It gave him purpose. It kept him sane.

Sam's warning about the nurses had also been an invaluable clue. Apparently his self in this reality was some kind of sex addict and had some kind of gift for seducing anything in a skirt, including hospital staff and visiting guests. Dean silently thanked that jackass Walpole for giving Sam this heads up, because it meant that Dean had an ace to play yet. If he could get the nurses on his side, he could have some allies. More than anything, Dean needed people on his side.

And so he found himself seated in the common room playing Crazy Eights with an orderly, a pretty nurse, and a fellow inmate who thought that the CEO of Dunkin Donuts was trying to kill him.

"Your move, Suzie Q," Dean said to the nurse. She was quite pretty, in a sweet, blonde, mousy kind of way. Somehow she seemed out of place in this nuthouse, with crazy and violent patients threatening her at almost every turn.

"Right," she said, laying down a four of clubs on top of the three of clubs before it. She gave Dean an encouraging smile and waited for him to take his turn.

Dean looked at his hand, saw that it contained no clubs and no fours, and drew from the deck.

"Pass," he said dully. "Your turn, Vinnie."

Vincent, the chubby, 30-something paranoid schizophrenic to Dean's left, looked at his cards tentatively and then sighed loudly.

"No," he said. "I think I'll save these for later. You never know when you might need some ammo."

Dean raised his eyebrows and grinned, making eye contact with the orderly and the nurse.

"Sure thing, Vinnie," Dean said. "You save that ammo for later."

Dean rubbed a hand wearily across his forehead and wondered idly how any sane person could think he belonged here, especially when compared with the buckets-of-crazy sitting next to him. There were times when he thought he saw the same thoughts flitting through the minds of his jailors, particularly the nurses and orderlies, who spent the most time with him. They were able to interact with the patients for the day-to-day activities, and saw first-hand who were the trouble-makers, who were the real head-cases, and who were the most dangerous. It was obvious from the way they treated him that no one quite knew what to make of Dean. His reputation for being a violent paranoid schizophrenic kept most of them at a safe distance, but his charm, his ease of manner and infectious sense of humour made him a popular inmate as well.

"Change it to diamonds," Bruce, the orderly said, laying down an eight on top of the pile. He had only recently started working here, some time after Dean had been transferred, and so didn't hold a grudge against Dean for breaking the nose of one of his comrades the way that many of the others seemed to.

"Not diamonds!" Vinnie shouted, visibly agitated. "The diamonds are sharp! Diamonds in the rough! In the rough!"

"No diamonds," Dean assured him. "It's cool Vinnie. We're cool. What do you want to change it to then, huh?"

"Hearts," Vinnie whispered, eyes closed, holding his cards to his chest in some kind of prayer.

"Changing it to hearts, then," Dean said, nodding to Bruce and Suzanne. "We're changing it to hearts."

The game continued in this vein for another twenty minutes, with Vincent occasionally protesting the play of a certain card. He nearly threw a tantrum when Dean's jack meant he had to skip a turn, until Bruce offered to skip the turn for him. Then Vincent had been led away by one of the doctors, who needed to see him for a round of treatment – Dean didn't want to know what – leaving Dean alone with Bruce and Suzanne.

"Do you want to keep playing?" Suzanne asked kindly.

"Like I want a hole in the head," Dean said with a heavy sigh. "Ok, seriously. How is it you guys aren't bored to freakin' tears right now?"

"We are," Bruce assured him. "I'm just thinking of my girl when I get home. Gets me through the day."

"Yeah, I bet," Dean replied, laughing hollowly. "What I wouldn't give to have a beer in one hand and a pool cue in the other. And some hot bar wench serving me tequila shots."

He smiled winsomely.

"Hey, somebody should sneak in some Jose and we can have ourselves a nice party over by the ping pong table, huh?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Stir up some trouble, whaddya say?"

Bruce rolled his eyes and Suzanne giggled.

"Though I don't suppose the alcohol would mix too well with the boat load of drugs you guys have got me on, huh? That'd be like the hang-over from Hell."

"Well you seem to be adjusting well," Suzanne said hopefully. "I know you had a bit of a rough start."

"Yeah, well, being strapped to a bed and drugged to a droolie state of stupid for three days tends to put things into perspective for you," Dean said with a smile, knowing the smile didn't reach his eyes this time. "It was adjust or die, right?"

"I'm sorry," Suzanne said. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"Relax, Suzie," Dean assured her. "I'm not gonna fall to pieces. I'm just… Ah hell, I don't know what I'm saying."

"It's ok," she replied. "Do you want to go lie down?"

"No," Dean said, giving her a reassuring smile. "M'ok." The less time he spent alone in his room the better.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean asked. "Why do you guys work here? I mean, of all the crap jobs in the world you could take, why would you _ever _choose to work here?"

"Well I can't speak for Suzanne," Bruce admitted, "but I took this job because I needed the money."

"And you can't find a job anywhere else?" Dean asked. Bruce shook his head. "Dude, that sucks out loud."

"Tell me about it," Bruce agreed.

"And you?" Dean asked, looking at Suzanne.

She shrugged.

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "I guess I just thought about all the people here who might need my help, you know? I used to work in the ER back home, when I still lived with my parents, and sometimes we'd deal with the psych cases and it always made me feel so sad. So when I saw that they were hiring here I figured I'd give it a shot. It felt like the kind of work I could be proud of, you know?"

Dean swallowed hard. _Yeah, I know_. Not many people got the hunting gig, with the zero pay, the high mortality rate, and the close brushes with the law. Hell, even Sam didn't get it most of the time. But it was worth it for the lives they saved.

"I just don't know how you guys can do it," Dean admitted. "Being here every day, around all the crazy… I'm ready to climb the walls every time Hector over there starts singing 'I'm Henry the Eighth.' And then with the screaming and the crying and holding people down and drugging them…" He cleared his throat, which had suddenly started to constrict. "Just seems kind of soul-crushing to me. But maybe that's just because I'm on the receiving end of it."

Dean pursed his lips in thought and stared ahead, noting that neither Bruce nor Suzanne had a response to his little monologue. He supposed he couldn't blame them. He had just inadvertently accused them of being complicit in acts of cruelty, after all. But fuck it. They _were_ complicit. They were holding him here against his will, locking him in a tiny, empty room every night. They had held him down and poisoned him with mind-numbing drugs. And even now they were force-feeding him meds that made him feel loopy and twitchy. And the bugs under his skin? That was a new side-effect that demanded reserves of strength he never knew he had. He found himself pawing and scratching at his skin to wipe the feeling away, but it never really left. The bugs were always there, crawling and clawing, just beneath his skin.

He didn't acknowledge when Bruce and Suzanne made their exits, but sat brooding silently, resisting the urge to throw the deck of cards helter skelter across the room. He got why people acted out in this place. It was enough to make anyone scream, shout, bang their head against a wall and rage at the world. He found himself so sorely tempted to do it now, to stand up on his chair and start shrieking like a banshee just because he could, just to keep the mind-numbing boredom at bay. Just to feel something, to have an outlet for his grief, his frustration and anger, and his fear.

"Dean," Walpole's patronizing voice intoned, drawing Dean from his dark thoughts.

"What the hell do you want?" Dean asked, not looking up.

"It's time for your latest therapy session," the doctor said. "Doctor Jameson is waiting."

For a moment Dean contemplated resisting, because he so sincerely disliked Dr. Walpole, but decided against it because he knew it would be more trouble than it was worth. But the ever-observant doctor must have sensed his hesitation, because he pounced.

"Come on now, Dean," he said silkily. "Be a good boy now and behave."

Dean stood, directing his most venomous green-eyed glare at the doctor, and imagined what it would feel like to slam that smirking face against the table. He could see it in his mind, could feel the man's startled cheeks in his hands as he visualized grabbing him by the face and forcing his head onto the table with a sickening crack. It brought a smile to his lips. Dr. Walpole paled slightly and took a step back.

"Chill out," Dean said casually. "I'm coming. And what's with the be-a-good-boy crap? I'm 27."

"And that means, what, exactly?" Walpole asked archly.

"It means I'm not a kid," Dean replied.

"You're somebody's kid," Walpole said, giving Dean a piercing but significant look. "No matter how old you get, you'll always be somebody's kid."

888

Dean waited on his bed, his back against the wall and his arms folded across his chest, as Dr. Walpole went to fetch Dr. Jameson. He couldn't get those parting words out of his head, couldn't make sense of them. _No matter how old you get, you'll always be somebody's kid_. It snagged at his mind, taunted him with possibility, but he couldn't make his mind work around it. It didn't make sense. The wheels in his head were turning, but nothing was clicking.

"Dean?" a voice called from the doorway, and he looked up to see an attractive brunette in a pantsuit with a white lab coat hanging over it. If he had to guess he would put her somewhere in her late thirties. Her long dark hair was pulled up into a loose, fraying bun and her glasses had somehow become bent and were sitting crookedly on her face. For some reason Dean thought of Lois Lane when he saw her walking toward him, an orderly at her side.

"Dean, I'm Dr. Jameson. Do you remember me?"

"Of course," Dean lied, smiling politely and inclining his head in a welcome-to-my-humble-abode kind of gesture. He had never laid eyes on this woman in his life.

She cocked her head to the side, a question on her arched brow. It must have been painfully obvious from the look on his face as she entered the room that he did not recognize her. Otherwise she wouldn't have asked the question.

"Yeah, ok fine. I got no clue who you are."

"We met at the Stafford Institute," she coaxed, hoping to jog his memory.

"Sorry," Dean said truthfully. "I don't remember anything about Stafford. Must be repressing or something."

"That's fine," she said quietly, calmly. It was amazing to Dean how everyone here always kept their voices so calm and quiet. It was aggravating to no end, like being spoken to if you were a child, or made of glass. But then, he supposed most of the people here were on the verge of shattering at any given moment. And in the eyes of the hospital staff, so was Dean.

The orderly handed her a chair that he had brought in from the common area and then stepped back to the far corner of the room, allowing Dean and Dr. Jameson to have the illusion of privacy. That was such a joke Dean almost laughed. _The dude's standing right there and can hear every word we say_.

"So Dean," she said, taking a seat in front of him. "How are you feeling today?"

Dean shrugged.

"I'm being held against my will in an asylum. How do you think I feel?"

She nodded and wrote something in her notebook. _Always with the damned clipboards and notebooks_. He wondered what she was writing and tilted his head to watch her as she scrawled on the page with a very narrow, slanted cursive script.

"Are you angry?" she asked.

"A little."

"Only a little?"

"Ok, a lot," Dean admitted.

"Why?" she asked mildly.

Dean gave her a stony look.

"Why do you think?" he asked.

She scrawled more in her notebook.

"You don't think you deserve to be here?" she asked.

"No, I don't."

The pen scratched across the page, and Dean scratched at the bug-crawling sensation under the skin on his neck, twitching his head to banish the feeling. _God, I look fucking crazy_.

She paused in her writing and laid the book flat on her lap, looking Dean in the eye and watching him for a moment waiting. They were always watching him, observing him, calculating every move and documenting it in their damned journals and patient logs, deciphering what every gesture, every sigh, and every hiccup meant.

"Let's talk about the monsters," she said at last.

"What monsters?" Dean asked. He tilted his head to the side and observed her clinically, watching her reaction to his question. He quirked a smile when she straightened up self-consciously as she noticed him watching her.

"The monsters that you hunt," she replied. "The last time we talked you told me that monsters were real, and that your family hunted them for a living."

"I did?" Dean feigned shock. "Why would I say something like that? That just sounds plum crazy to me."

"So you don't hunt monsters?"

"Monsters don't exist," Dean said simply. "Unless you count that freak outside in the lab coat."

"You mean Dr. Walpole?"

Dean nodded.

"Hm," she said thoughtfully. "So you don't like Dr. Walpole?" When Dean shook his head no, she asked why.

"Because he likes to hurt people," Dean explained.

"I see," she said, scribbling in her notebook once again. "So do you think that Dr. Walpole deserves to die?"

"What?" Dean asked. "No. Of course not." _Get the shit kicked out of him, sure. But die? Probably not_.

"But you said he's a monster," she said casually. "And you hunt monsters."

She was trying to trip him up and he knew it.

"No," he corrected. "I said monsters aren't real."

"So a monster didn't kill your mother?"

Damn she was good. He could feel his calm cracking and breaking. He shrugged his head toward his shoulder, banishing the crawling feeling in his skin and trying to cling to the lie that might get him out of here.

"No. My mother died in a fire."

"So she didn't die pinned to the ceiling by a demon?" she asked.

He could feel his hands shaking. He forced himself to say no.

"Uh-huh," she said, scribbling more notes in her book. "So who did start the fire?"

"What?"

"The fire that killed your mother – who started it?" she asked. "Was it you?"

"What? No." No, this wasn't how the conversation was supposed to go. She wasn't allowed to make these kinds of suggestions.

"Did you start the fire?" she pressed.

"No," Dean said, his chest tight. It hurt to breathe.

"Uh-huh," she said again. "Was it your baby brother Sam? Did he crawl out of his crib and set the fire?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean demanded. "He was a freakin' baby. Of course he didn't start the fire."

"And you were how old? Four?"

Dean nodded. He really didn't like where she was going with this. The implication made his stomach hurt. Not in any reality… Not Mom.

"And you didn't take a candle from your parents' nightstand and drop it into your brother's crib?" she asked casually.

He wanted to throw up. He wanted to strangle her. He wanted to scream and cry at her to shut the hell up, but all he could do was stare at her in horror. Was this who he was? Was this how it had all begun in this reality? Crazy, fucked-up Dean trying to burn up his baby brother and ends up killing Mommy instead? No. No. Not in any reality.

"Why are you saying this?" Dean asked in a hushed whisper. "Why are you saying this stuff?" He couldn't feel the tear trickling its way down his cheek for the crawling of the bugs in his skin.

"Does it hurt you to talk about this?" she asked.

"Yes," he whispered through gritted teeth.

"Why?"

"Because she was my mom," Dean forced himself to reply. "Because I loved her more than anything."

"It's ok, Dean," she said kindly. "I understand that you're upset. Just calm down."

He wanted to murder the next person that told him to calm down.

"Does it make it easier for you to believe that a demon killed your mother?" she asked.

"I don't want to talk anymore," Dean whispered. "Just shut up. Please, just shut the hell up and get out."

His hands were shaking so bad he thought he might pass out.

"Ok," she said, getting up slowly from her chair and backing away. The orderly from the corner stepped forward to take the chair and followed her out. He paused at the door and stole a quick glance at Dean, who was now trembling violently.

"Dean, buddy," he said cautiously, stepping back into the room. "You ok?"

Bile rushed up the back of Dean's throat and he lunged forward and away from the wall, making it to the edge of the bed before spilling the contents of his stomach onto the floor. He retched and gagged, vomiting again and again, his whole body trembling, his teeth chattering in a sudden chill.

"I'll go get a nurse," the orderly said, making to leave, but Dean caught his wrist.

"No," he pleaded, spitting past the taste of vomit in his mouth, his long lashes wet and glistening with tears. "Please don't leave me… please don't leave me alone?"

The orderly sat on the bed next to Dean, laying a reassuring hand on his back, and sat with him while he wept like a child.

"I didn't kill my mom," Dean whispered through the sobs. "I didn't kill my mom."

But the crushing truth was he didn't know for sure, and that uncertainty was what shook him to the very core. He had never been so alone or so lost, even when Sam went away to Stanford. Knowing that Sam was out there and that he was ok had been enough to sustain Dean through the lonely hunts when Dad had left him to handle a job on his own. But this was different. This was complete isolation, complete separation, complete dislocation. He didn't belong in this world – the world where he was locked up like an animal to protect innocent people from his crazy, destructive delusions. Here he was the monster, and the one person he needed most, counted on the most, was far, far away.

"Sammy…"


	3. Chapter 3

More angst and woe, because I know how much we all thirst for the man-pain. Thanks to everyone for the reviews and comments! I hope to keep this one coming along steadily!

888

He turned the key in the lock, feeling the resistance of metal against metal, and gave it a gentle shake, easing it into place and turning the knob with added pressure, just slightly to the right, which did the trick in coaxing the deadbolt back into its hiding place within the door as he turned the key. The apartment was warm and carried the faint scent of curry on the air when he stepped inside. Jess had apparently taken advantage of Sam's absence and ordered Indian, which he hated.

He slid his shoes off at the door, his heels feeling thick and sore and heavy with each step as he made his way down the hall. The lights in the living room were off, but the eerie blue glow flashing in the darkness suggested that Jess was still up, unless of course she had fallen asleep watching TV.

"That you, babe?" she called from the couch.

Sam shuffled to the end of the hall, where the wall cut away to the open living room, and smiled at the blonde bombshell that lay sprawled on the couch, the remote held loosely in her extended hand.

"Hey," Sam said dreamily, closing the distance between himself and the couch and easing his way down next to her as he lifted her legs to make room for himself. He rested a hand comfortably on her smooth, bare calf and stroked it absently. "I see you dined tonight at the Curry village."

"Technically I dined here," she corrected, her blue eyes twinkling. "The Curry Village was so obliging as to deliver."

"My mistake," Sam said, smiling.

"So how'd it go," she asked, "your visit with your dad?"

Sam nodded, feeling that pang in his heart again.

"Good," he said. "It went good."

"He's doing all right?"

Sam nodded again.

"Good," she said, full of warmth and love, making him feel how much he didn't deserve it. "I'm glad. And I hope some day soon maybe I'll get to meet him?"

Sam took a deep breath to steady himself from all the emotions that were rushing through him all at once. This woman was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Seeing her here and bathing in the light of her love and her beauty was enough to stir him to tears. How could he be so happy when his family was so miserable? Somehow it didn't seem right. He looked into her smiling face and thought about Dean, strapped to that bed, his once vibrant green eyes so vacant, so empty. How was it that the world kept turning, and this woman kept on loving him, while Dean was wasting away in that hole?

"Sam?" Jessica said tentatively. "Baby, what is it?"

"I just keep thinking," Sam whispered, "how short life is. How one minute you're flying high and the next you're being beaten by the storm..."

"Honey what happened?"

"I'm gonna ask you to marry me," Sam found himself saying. And why not? There would never be a right time, would never be a time when he meant it more. "Because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Jess."

She stared at him for a long moment in stunned disbelief, then sat up, swinging her legs off of him and planting her feet on the floor in front of her.

"Sam, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing's wrong," he assured her. "God Jess, I just love you so much."

Without warning he placed both hands on her face and pulled her to him to kiss her, deeply, breathing in her essence and holding it there tightly within him, not wanting to let her go, not wanting to lose the feel of her. She returned the kiss, running her hands through his tumbling brown locks. The kiss spoke more than words could. It was a confirmation of sorts – an answer.

"So will you?" Sam asked breathlessly, resting his forehead against hers so that their noses were almost touching.

Jess grinned, those blue eyes sparkling almost silver in the glaring TV screen light.

"Of course I will," she whispered, stealing another quick kiss and sliding her hands from his hair to rest around his neck. "But first, I want you to tell me what happened. Don't argue –" she objected, noticing that he was about to shrug it off. "You're practically shaking. What's gotten into you?"

Sam heaved a sigh. Where did he begin? The burden of truth was so heavy upon his shoulders. He slumped beneath the weight of it, feeling it crushing his tall frame to a geriatric stoop.

"I'm a bad person," he said thickly, struggling past the constriction in his throat. "I don't… deserve to be happy."

"What are you talking about?" Jess laid a reassuring hand on his cheek and watched Sam closely. "Of course you're a good person. You're one of the best people I know."

"But you don't know everything," he said. "I kept things from you because I was embarrassed, because I was ashamed. But I know that we can't build our lives together if you don't know everything about me."

"Ok Sam, you're starting to scare me," she said, her right hand against her heart.

"I have a brother," Sam confessed. "I have a brother named Dean and I never told you about him because I was afraid you'd think of me differently if you knew…"

He could see that she was baffled. Her brows were drawn together in a sad frown, her lips parted in unspoken concern. God he loved her so much.

"When my mom died, my dad kind of checked out, emotionally." It would be better to just explain it all at once, he thought. He didn't think he could bear any interruptions or questions; it might tempt him to stop. So he just barrelled ahead with his explanation.

"Dean pretty much raised me. He was four years older than me – real protective. He took care of me, and took care of Dad when he was around. And he never complained. He just soldiered ahead, taking care of us because no one else could or would, and he never complained, even though it meant he missed out on just about everything himself."

"After he graduated he took a job at Dad's garage so he could help out with the business – keep Dad's drinking to a minimum. He never thought about college or career plans or anything like that, because I was still around and I still needed looking after."

It was important that Jessica knew, and fully understood, how good Dean had once been, how selfless, giving, and considerate he had been. The truth of who Dean really was would act as a buffer to soften the image, he hoped, of what Dean had become.

"And then I grew up," Sam said, choking back the pain as a few tears stole their way out of his hazel eyes. "And without a second glance I up and left for Stanford – left Dean alone with whatever broken dreams he had and I never really looked back. I wanted out. I wanted away from Dad's drinking, away from our crappy shack of a house, away from the garage that was like our Winchester destiny. I just wanted out. So I left."

Jess took Sam's hand in hers and patted it reassuringly, waiting for Sam to continue.

"It broke his heart – Dean's." He couldn't meet her eyes. "Something in him snapped, I guess. Whatever glue had been holding him together while we were growing up dissolved after I left, and Dean went on a complete down-spiral. The doctors call it a psychotic break. He, uh, was convinced that he was a demon hunter – that our whole family were demon hunters – and that we needed to save the world from ghosts and monsters and werewolves… He just lost it completely."

"Oh God," Jess said sadly.

"But I wasn't there to see it – I should have seen it – and by the time anyone noticed how far gone he was it was too late. He thought he'd found this girl who was possessed. He was sure she was a demon. She was nineteen years old – a college student. And he… he, uh… he killed her."

It was so quiet he could have heard a pin drop in the next room. Jess was silent as the grave, staring at Sam with wide eyes. She looked terrified and sad at the same time, torn between hugging Sam in comfort and running away in fear. He wasn't sure which one she would choose, so he went on.

"He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. They sent him to a mental hospital in Kansas four years ago and he's been there ever since. Well, until last week. He…" Sam coughed past the pain. "He had another psychotic break a couple of weeks ago and went berserk. Two guards died. So they transferred him to one of those maximum security asylums where the most dangerous, criminally insane people go. And I just got back from visiting him."

There. He'd said it. The truth of his past, of his guilt, of Dean's illness, that dead albatross hanging around his neck, had been flung to the floor. Sam wanted to leave that ghost ship and its tattered sails behind.

"Oh my God," Jess whispered, her hand still on her chest. "I can't… Why didn't you think you could tell me?"

"Jess, I haven't told anyone," Sam said shamefacedly. "I think I thought if I actually admitted it, actually said it out loud…"

"That it would be true," she finished for him.

Sam nodded.

"I just remember what Dean used to be like, you know? He was always so strong and so stubborn and cocky and funny… Nothing like the dangerous schizoid the papers made him out to be." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I just never wanted to think of him that way."

"Ok," Jess said soothingly, running her hands along Sam's thighs comfortingly. "It's ok. I understand why you didn't tell me."

Sam smiled in relief, too overcome with emotion for words.

"But now that I'm going to be part of the family – because my answer is still yes," she said, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. "Your brother is now my brother. So I want to meet him."

Of all things, Sam had most definitely not expected this.

"What?"

"That's right," Jess said, drawing up her shoulders bravely. "How soon before we can arrange another trip to Kansas?"

888

He was moving. The semi-conscious, semi-drug weary realization that he was stationary yet moving brought Dean out of his unnatural sleep, his heavy lids struggling to open in the harsh yellow light of the fluorescent bulbs that whizzed past overhead. He moved his head sluggishly to the side, forcing his eyes to open wider as he took inventory of the situation, watching as he was wheeled on a gurney down a gray hall, past steel doors. Stop. Buzz. A door opened and he was pushed through it.

He groaned in confusion and tried to turn onto his side to get up, but found that his hands were bound in those infernal leather straps, as well as his feet.

"What the hell…?" he mumbled.

He lifted his head and saw the familiar but unwelcome bandaged face of the orderly whose nose Dean had broken on his first day here. The bruising in his eyes had faded to a sickly yellowish brown hue, but the white splint was still secured over the bridge of his nose. Dean was pretty sure his name was Mike. The man smirked when he noticed Dean looking at him, and steered the gurney resolutely ahead, not saying a word, not making any effort to explain what was happening or where they were going.

"Where are you taking me?" Dean asked. He craned his neck to the other side and nearly jumped out of his skin when he noticed Dr. Walpole strolling casually alongside the gurney.

He smiled with feigned warmth and clamped a hand over Dean's mouth.

"Shhh," he whispered. "We don't want to wake everyone else up. People are trying to sleep."

_Oh this can't be good_. Dean tried to jerk his head away but Dr. Walpole pressed harder, pushing Dean's lips hard against his teeth.

"Almost there," he whispered again in a sing-song voice.

Dean watched as the doctor reached for the key card that hung from his neck and ran it through the swipe pad alongside the steel door in front of them. The door opened with the familiar buzz and the orderly pushed Dean through it, Dr. Walpole releasing his hand from Dean's mouth and following close behind them. The door then shut with a grinding and then a click that made Dean's heart beat faster.

He tried to raise himself enough to see where he was, but mostly he could see ceiling and the occasional patch of counter space. There were odd-looking machines and assorted bits of equipment that Dean assumed were all part of various 'treatments' here at the hospital, and he was forcibly reminded of a certain mad psychiatrist whose torturous experiments had led to a haunted wing in an abandoned asylum.

"Crap!" Dean muttered under his breath, trying to stem the tide of rising panic. "Hey uh, Dr. Ellicott. Whacha doing, huh?"

Dr. Walpole was busying himself with something beyond Dean's field of vision, but he stepped into view to smile at Dean's remark.

"You're familiar with the work of Sanford Ellicott, are you?" His eyes twinkled.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Dean groaned. "No way. No way!"

"He had some brave ideas," Dr. Walpole admitted wistfully. "Of course, we'd never get away with that kind of thing now. But he was a pioneer."

"Yeah, he was a real hero," Dean growled. "Hey listen man, if you're thinking of trying some of that crazy anger-treatment garbage, you can just save it, alright? I've already received a hefty dose of Ellicott's rage treatment and it didn't cure my kind of crazy."

"Why, did you hunt down his ghost?" Walpole taunted.

"You bet your ass I did," Dean hissed. "And when I get outta here, I'm going to hunt down your ass too."

"Because I'm a monster," Walpole whispered. "That's right. You told Dr. Jameson that I'm a monster."

Dean didn't flinch. He glared up at the man before him, the man who had the power to do anything to him that he wished without any fear of retaliation or resistance, and cocked his best and most infuriating grin.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," he bluffed. "Because when your time comes due, I'm going to enjoy kicking your ass right through your teeth."

"You think so?"

"Untie me and find out." Dean sneered. "Oh that's right. You've got all the power, so long as your victims are tied up, drugged up, and can't move a muscle to stop you. You're real tough."

Walpole eyed Dean curiously, a bright smile stealing its way across his long features.

"I'm more powerful than you think," he said quietly, leaning close so that he could whisper in Dean's ear. "You should be careful what you say to me, Dean. Since I'm the one that brought you here."

Dean's heart skipped a beat. He swallowed hard, trying to process what the man had just said. He watched in confusion as the doctor wheeled a machine and an IV over to Dean's bedside. He was quick in administering the IV, not bothering to be careful with its insertion, before he moved on to his next task.

"What the hell is that?" Dean asked, looking down at the fluid snaking its way into his system through the IV.

"Succinylcholine," Walpole replied conversationally. "It'll relax the muscles to prevent bone or spine fracture."

Dean struggled against his bonds, frantically tugging against them to try to break free, terrified now of whatever diabolical plan the mad scientist before him had in store. Whatever he was doing, it was obviously off the record, considering there was only an orderly there to assist him, and considering it was being conducted in the middle of the night.

"We usually use an anaesthetic," Walpole went on, slathering a dab of jelly on Dean's temples and stuffing a rubber block in Dean's mouth, between his teeth. "But since you're so convinced that I'm a monster… Well, I'll let you decide."

Dean's chest heaved with panic, his lungs struggling for air as he nearly hyperventilated with fear as the muscle relaxant made its way through his system. He could feel his muscles easing, his struggles ceasing, and his limbs sinking into the cushion on the gurney beneath him, but his heart continued to race and thunder madly in his breast.

If he could have spoken through the block in his mouth he would have begged for mercy, would have promised anything, to prevent what was about to happen, but the only means of communication that was left to him was his eyes. He looked from Dr. Walpole to Mike the orderly, and then back to Dr. Wapole again, pleading with his eyes for them to stop what they were doing. But they both seemed to drink in the sight of him, his panicked eyes darting from one to the other, with a sick kind of relish.

"If only the great John Winchester could see his son now," Dr. Walpole said, smiling so widely and so viciously that Dean's breath caught in his throat. And then he placed the electrodes against the conducting jelly on Dean's temples and flicked the switch.

888

He didn't know how long he had been unconscious, but when he finally opened his eyes it was to find that he was lying in his own bed in his tiny white room, the sun from outside peeking through the bars on his window. His teeth and jaw throbbed, his muscles were cramped and aching all over, and a skull-splitting headache pounded through his head in stabs of fire and ice. His breath caught in his throat when he tried to move, the pain stopping him short. He closed his eyes and took several deep, steadying breaths, trying to breathe through the ache and the shock.

He couldn't remember what had happened, but the pit in his stomach that acted like his own personal spidey sense told him that whatever it was it had been terrible. The head-to-toe ache that reached to the marrow of his bones kept him immobile. He just wanted to lie in place and not move until the pain went away. But there was a voice. Someone was talking to him.

"Dean," the nurse said. "Dean, honey, you've got to get up."

He forced his eyes open, turning his head slightly to the side to peer up at the figure looming over him. It was Cheryl, the reigning matriarch of the nursing staff. The woman with the most clout.

"Come on, up you go," she said, grabbing Dean under the shoulders and hefting him out of bed. She was strong and sturdy for such a skinny woman, Dean thought, groaning in protest as his muscles seized up.

"You had a bad night, huh?" she said, helping Dean to his feet and taking a quick perusal of her patient's current physical status. "Well that's all right. We'll get you cleaned up."

Dean looked down and saw that his pants were stained with yellow around his crotch, and immediately his head whipped toward the bed to look for the telltale urine stain, but the sheets were clean. Wherever he'd pissed himself, it hadn't been in here. His cheeks burned with shame but Cheryl didn't even blink, being more than used to these kinds of accidents. She lifted Dean's arm and wedged her shoulder under his, hoisting him up and helping to lead him through the room.

"We'll get you cleaned up," she repeated as they made their way down the hall, an orderly in tow.

Showering and bathing at Golden Brook Asylum was never private, because apparently bathrooms were invitation for violence, rape, and suicide when patients were left to their own devices. At least one nurse and one orderly had to be present at all times, often because the patients were too doped up to bathe themselves, but also to ensure that no boundaries were crossed and that none of the staff members were tempted to abuse their power by taking advantage of their wards. It was a fact particularly stinging to Dean Winchester, who considered showering to be a kind of melding with the gods. When bath time came, Dean would choke back the indignation with a heart fit to burst, willing himself not to cry, willing himself to try to enjoy the cleansing waters washing the hospital stink away.

Today was different, somehow. He stood numbly, watching in detached silence as Cheryl undressed him beneath the shower head before turning the water on. Her ministrations were brusque but tender, business with gentleness. He found her presence strangely soothing, her practical, no-nonsense approach like a solid thing he could cling to.

"Are you cold?" she asked him when she noticed that his hands were shaking. He couldn't help it. The dull aching in his bones frightened him. The blinding pain in his spine frightened him. _Succinylcholine_, he heard a voice in his head say. _It'll relax the muscles to prevent bone or spine fracture_. He tried so hard to put the pieces together in his mind, to remember what it was that he had forgotten. Cheryl turned the knob for the hot water, increasing the temperature to help ease the chill from his bones.

He wondered what Sam was doing right now. Not the Stanford Sam of this reality, but the Sam that he had left behind. He wondered how that Sam was doing, and what he was doing – whether he was looking for him – whether he was real. Would he try to find Dad, leaving frantic messages screaming, _'Dean's missing!' _? Or would he take Dean's absence as his signal to go back to the life he'd so recently left behind and return to Stanford to be Joe Normal again – just like the Sam here had done?

He cursed his own stupid weakness when his shoulders shook with the sob that escaped him, tears falling freely with the trickle from the shower overhead. He had just gotten Sam back, had just recently been able to convince him to stay with him to help him find Dad, and now he'd lost him, and lost himself into the bargain. The oppressive feeling of loss and helplessness was overwhelming.

"Oh no," he heard Cheryl say, pausing in her soap lathering to give Dean a forced stern look. "No face that pretty is allowed to look so sad. I want to see that handsome chin up." She lifted his chin in her hand and held his gaze in hers.

"Come on now, Dean," she coaxed. "I'm standing in the shower with one of the sexiest men alive. Flash me some of that charm and that gorgeous smile and I'm yours forever."

He smiled in spite of himself, glad for the distraction from his misery.

"Atta boy," she said, smiling broadly. Water from the shower splashed in her face but she worked through it, ignoring it as a horse ignores the flies that land on its eyeballs.

Dean watched her as she scrubbed at him, standing passively and uselessly immobile as she worked his body into a lather with a green bar of soap-on-a-rope that hung loosely from her wrist. There was something so unassuming and artless about her, something sturdy, sure, and honest. He didn't know how old she was, she had one of those faces that wore age well, though time showed in the depths of her amber eyes just as years of experience showed in the skill of her hand as she practiced her craft.

He liked nurses. They were the backbone of the healthcare system, the worker bees who kept every emergency room, every health clinic, and every treatment centre running smoothly. Here at the asylum they were the tender, guiding hands of kindness and caring. They soothed the tears when the patients broke down, they mopped the sweaty brows when patients crumbled with pain, they tended wounds, cleaned bedpans and sheets, and ministered baths. And Cheryl was the best.

She stepped up onto her tip toes to lather the soap into Dean's hair. His eyes rolled back in his head at the feel of her fingernails gently grazing his scalp. She guided his head under the direct path of the stream of water, sending cascades of soapy water running down his face. He squinted through the onslaught, trying to keep the soap from his eyes, and noted through one peeked eye-slit that she was smiling at him again.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, taking him by the shoulder and turning him so that the water was beating directly onto his face, washing the soap from his eyes. "There, that's better."

Dean blinked through the water, noticing the faintest sting as the remnants of soapy water stole its way into his eyes. But it was so diluted that it was barely noticeable. He wiped the water from his eyes as he turned away from the direct spray so that it was beating down soothingly on the back of his head once again.

"Better?" he asked with a grin.

"You shine up like a new penny," she assured him.

Before he even realized what he was doing he had leaned in and kissed her. He didn't know why, and God knew under any other circumstances the thought would never have crossed his mind, but the impulse came so strongly upon him that he couldn't stop himself. His lips were on hers and in her surprise and shock she didn't resist. His hands cupped her face and pulled her closer to him as he sucked the air from her lungs into his own. He felt the sweet, tingly wetness of her tongue brush against his as he teased his way between her parted lips.

Then reality crashed back for both of them. She pulled away with a gasp, looking angrily at up at him but then softening immediately at the confused and bewildered expression on his face.

"I'm sorry," Dean muttered, turning away with the suddenly overwhelming desire to hide his nakedness.

"Everything ok?" the orderly asked, roused from his daydreaming at the sound of Dean's apology. It appeared he had missed the sexy little exchange. _Thank God_. Dean didn't want Cheryl to get in trouble because he'd lost his mind at the first sign of a little tenderness.

"We're fine," Cheryl said peremptorily, turning off the water and grabbing a towel from the nearby bench to hand to Dean. "I've got to go do my rounds. Can you see that Dean gets dressed and is returned to his room?"

And with that she turned and made a hurried exit from the shower room, leaving Dean and the orderly – he thought his name might be Greg – alone in her wake. Dean turned his back to the orderly and dried himself as quickly as he could, gritting his teeth through the pain in his spine when he bent over to dry his legs.

"You sore?" Greg asked as he watched Dean struggling into his clean gray hospital pants. "You need some help?"

"M'ok," Dean said, grunting and then gasping as a sharp stab of pain shot up his spine.

"I can get Dr. Walpole to give you something for the pain," he suggested. "The electroshock therapy can be kind of rough on your body, but it doesn't usually last too long."

Dean's insides froze. _We usually use an anaesthetic_, Dr. Walpole's voice said in his mind. _But since you're so convinced that I'm a monster…_ Last night. They had taken him from his room while he slept, had secreted him away to run a private course of un-anaesthetised electroshock therapy.

His knees buckled as shock took him to the ground. He cried out in pain when his kneecap made contact with the floor, sending shards of agony stabbing through his bones.

"Dean!" Greg called, on his feet in an instant and at Dean's side. "What's the matter? What happened?"

"How?" Dean asked, forcing himself to breathe. "How did you know? About… the electroshock…?"

"You've got the look," Greg explained, laying a comforting hand on Dean's back. "You sure you don't want me to go get a nurse or a doctor?"

"No," Dean said, panting with the effort to keep his emotions in check and to banish the waves of agony slicing through his legs. "What look?"

"Like you've been pistol-whipped over every inch of your body," Greg said simply. "Like you don't quite know which way is up and which way is down because your brain just got fried."

Dean reflexively reached for his head, imagining his brain being blasted with electricity. He shuddered and suppressed a gag as nausea washed over him, remembering the literal heart-stopping pain of a hundred thousand volts of electricity coursing through his body on a recent hunt for a Rawhead that had gone terribly wrong.

"Why does this shit keep happening to me?" he asked of no one in particular. "Well screw that. Next time it's Sammy's turn."


	4. Chapter 4

So I realize that the administration of anaesthesia is generally performed by an anaesthesiologist, but whatever. Suspension of disbelief is a luxury I invite you to bathe in for the better enjoyment of this chapter. Trust me, it'll help.

888

It was official. Asylum therapy sucked hairy ass. Dean watched Dr. Jameson watching him, his gaze never leaving hers, her gaze never leaving his, in a kind of staring contest to see who could stand the not-blinking the longest. He sat at ease, leaning back against the wall with his knees up on the bed, his arms folded back to cradle his head, while Dr. Jameson occupied her usual chair directly across from him. All the while he resisted the urge to bat at the bugs under his skin – the bone-deep ache made any sudden movement a special kind of agonizing surprise. He had been sitting watching her, saying nothing, for ten minutes, and he'd be damned if he was going to say anything else for the rest of the session if he could help it. He was tired and sore and cranky and really wanted to be alone to contemplate the previous night's torture session with Dr. Walpole.

But Dr. Jameson had no intention of letting him off that easy.

"This is an interesting new tactic," she observed pleasantly. "Are we going to enjoy the silence together for this whole session, or are we going to be mature and have an adult conversation?"

Dean smirked at the jibe but said nothing. He'd been accused of worse, and if immature was the best she could throw at him, she was obviously playing like an amateur.

"So why don't you want to talk today?" she asked.

"Tell me what I gotta say to make you go away," Dean replied with a heavy sigh, "and I'll say it."

"How about telling me how you feel today?" she suggested.

"How I feel?"

"Yeah." She held her notebook in her hand, pen poised over the exposed blank page. "Tell me how you're feeling right now."

"I'm feeling like I want you to leave," he said with a smile. "Gosh that was easy. It was nice talking to you." He waved goodbye for added emphasis.

"You sound angry," she said.

"I'm tired."

"Dean, please, I need you to talk to me." She leaned forward in her chair. "I can't help you if you don't let me in."

Dean laughed hollowly.

"Listen lady, you can't help me period," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because you can't," he said, licking his lips and smiling his nervous smile. "Because therapy only works if you tell the truth, right? And I can't tell you the truth. You don't want to hear the truth from me, you want to hear some my-daddy-touched-me-in-the-bad-place sob story – and I'm sorry, but that ain't gonna happen."

"Why not?"

"Because _that_ would be a lie," he said. "All those theories you've got cooking up in your brain about what drove Dean Winchester crazy just don't hold any water. 'Cos I'm not crazy."

"So demons and werewolves and ghosts – they're real?" she asked.

Dean heaved a sigh.

"Just go to hell," he growled. "Go to hell and leave me alone."

Dr. Jameson didn't move, but continued to watch him, studying him behind her skewed glasses.

"Can I just ask you something then?" She took Dean's lack of response or protest as a yes. "If what you say is true, and you really are a hunter, and you really do hunt ghosts and demons and otherworldly monsters, why is it that your brother and your father aren't backing up your story? I mean, you said that you hunted these things together, as a family, and that your dad trained you to be warriors to fight against these forces of evil… So why would they let you rot in here instead of backing you up and telling the truth about what you guys do?"

"Because they're not _them_!" Dean blurted. "Everything's different here. Nothing's the way it's supposed to be."

She was writing in the notebook now.

"What do you mean by here? Here at the Asylum?"

"No," he said, running his hands angrily through his hair. "This world – it's like everything changed. One minute everything was normal. I was staying at a motel with my brother listening to him snore in the next bed. And then the next minute I'm here, with everyone telling me I've been here for four years."

"And your brother and your father were no longer your brother and father?"

"No. Yes. Well, no. They're them, but they're different. Someone, or some_thing_, brought me here. To this other world."

"Other world?" Her hand scribbling madly across the page.

"Ah Christ!" Dean hissed. "Look, I know this sounds crazy. In fact, the more I open my mouth the crazier it sounds. But I'm tellin' you, a few weeks ago I was somewhere else, and then I woke up here in this hellhole."

"A few weeks ago you were at the Stafford Institute, Dean," she said mildly.

"NO," he argued. "I wasn't. I was in Arizona hunting down a Black Dog with my brother."

"Ok," she conceded. "So you were in another world, and then you ended up here. How? Who or what brought you here?"

"I don't know," he said desperately, knowing that she didn't believe him, knowing that every word he said was adding fuel to his own pyre. But now that he'd opened his mouth he felt the strongest pull to just say it all out loud to see how crazy it really sounded.

"Dr. Walpole maybe?" he suggested. "He made a couple odd comments about my dad, like maybe he had a grudge against him or something… Maybe this isn't about me at all. Maybe this is something he's doing to my dad."

"What kind of comments?"

"Well the first one he said was kind of weird… like something about me being someone's kid, no matter how old I got." He noticed the arch, questioning look. "It wasn't what he said, so much as how he said it. Made my blood run cold."

"Uh-huh," she said. "And the other comments?"

"He said he brought me here," Dean said. "That I should respect his power because he brought me here."

"Uh-_huh_." The change in tone conveyed her obvious disbelief.

"And.." It was so fuzzy, he had to close his eyes to dig the memory out. "I thought I heard him say… something…about the great John Winchester… seeing his son now."

Dr. Jameson put the cap back on her pen and set the notebook on her lap, leaning forward once again to maintain some kind of feeling of intimacy.

"And when did Dr. Walpole say all of this to you?" she asked.

"Last night," Dean said. "He took me to one of the labs in the middle of the night for a secret round of electroshock therapy."

"He did?" She might as well have been humouring a five year-old with the overly bright eyes and feigned shock in her voice.

"I'm telling you the truth!" Dean insisted. "I woke up strapped to a gurney being pushed down a corridor. They wheeled me into this room – I couldn't see much because I was strapped down, but –"

"They?"

"Dr. Walpole and one of the orderlies – Mike I think. They took me there and they hooked me up to an IV and…" His throat felt tight. "And I couldn't move or fight back, but I could still feel…" Hurt to breathe.

"Anaesthetic is always used for electroshock therapy, Dean," Dr. Jameson explained calmly. "You wouldn't have been able to feel it."

"Didn't use anaesthetic," Dean croaked. "He… he wanted to show me what a monster really was."

He could see her looking at him like he had completely come unhinged, like she was really seeing him for the first time. He knew how it sounded. These accusations were no different to her than the ramblings of Vinnie down the hall, who said that the President of Dunkin Donuts had placed loud speakers around the local churches to issue orders to parishioners to kill him. _You've been diagnosed as a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, Dean. Everything you've just said confirms that_.

"I know how it sounds," Dean conceded, feeling desperate and slightly terrified. "But I'm telling you the truth. Ask Greg, the orderly who took me to the showers this morning. He said I had 'the look' – he could tell I'd gone for a round of the electro treatment. He knew! And I promise you if you check the log book you'll see that I've never gone in there for the electro stuff before."

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a sad look.

"Do you think it's possible you dreamt this, or imagined this, because you're afraid of the treatment?" she asked kindly.

"No," Dean insisted. "It was real. I woke up this morning and my jaw was killin' me, and my body ached all over, right down to my bones. I wasn't imagining that."

She nodded, considering it.

"Well, sometimes the body can take on the pain of stresses that weren't really there. Kind of like when someone loses a leg, but feels ghost pains in their foot afterwards."

"I didn't imagine it," he said. "It happened. I know it happened."

"Dean, I need you to listen to me very carefully," Dr. Jameson said, her hands folded across her lap, her eyes intense. "I know that the things you're seeing and hearing are frightening to you, and that they seem real to you, but Dr. Walpole is trying to help you. He's not a monster."

"Like hell he isn't," Dean muttered angrily.

"Dean, listen to me," she said firmly. "Dr. Walpole is not a monster. You are not a monster hunter. You're safe here, and we'll keep you safe, but if you try to harm Dr. Walpole, you'll be strapped to that bed until judgment day."

It was then that Dean realized just how much trouble he was in. To these people, Dean was the bad guy. Dean was the one who was dangerous and needed to be watched and controlled and contained. His accusations would come off as nothing more than the mad ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic. He had no recourse, no one to turn to, to prevent these things from happening to him. And if he fought back, he would certainly be punished for it with the loss of what few freedoms he had left, the loss of control of his own body, and most likely the loss of his mind.

888

He lay on his bed and stared at the wall, thinking about Dr. Walpole and the baffling things he had said the night before. Why had he made that comment about the great John Winchester? And had he really admitted to being responsible for somehow transporting Dean to this hell? How? How could he possibly have the power to completely alter reality? And why would he do it?

He wasn't alone with these thoughts for long when the door creaked open and nurse Cheryl and Bruce and Greg, the orderlies, entered.

"Time to go, Dean," Cheryl said kindly. "Can you come with us?"

He slid out of bed, glad that his muscles and bones had finally eased into a dull ache, and followed them to the door. The way they flanked him made him nervous, but he knew that it was pretty routine for more than one orderly to accompany a nurse when accompanying a patient. Most of the patients here could turn on a dime, and Dean guessed that, given his strength and military combat training, he probably posed the biggest threat in their eyes.

He wondered idly where they were going: a health check at the infirmary, perhaps? Or maybe for another soak in the shower? He hoped it wasn't for another therapy session with a different therapist. Two in one day would definitely be too much.

He lost track of which direction they were heading in with each door they buzzed through and each corridor they passed, until at last they stopped in front of a large steel door. On the left side of the corridor, just before the door, there was a wide, open doorless bathroom with a toilet, a sink, and an air dryer attached to the wall. For some reason Dean got the impression that this was a last pit stop on the road to whatever lay beyond that door.

"If you think you might have to go, you should do it now," Cheryl suggested.

Well that couldn't be good.

Dean felt his muscles tensing, a chill running down his aching spine, as he stepped into the bathroom. He tried not to think about the urine stain on his pants this morning – surely they couldn't be bringing him _there_, now – as he made his way to the toilet. His hands shook as he fumbled with the drawstring on his pants. _Not again. Not now. Still fucking sore from last night._ He turned his back to them and did his business, fear having suddenly pushed the urge to pee strongly upon him. They couldn't be taking him there now.

He washed his trembling hands and dried them, stealing quick glances at the two orderlies and the nurse waiting at the door, watching him. Their eyes were filled with pity, their expressions almost regretful. _Oh God. Oh God._

"Right this way, honey," Cheryl said, laying a hand on his shoulder as Greg slid his swipe card through the key pass on the wall and the door opened with a loud buzz.

He was seeing it from a different angle, but he knew right away that he had been in this room before. He recognized the placement of the odd-looking machines in the corner, the countertops, the window at the back. Dr. Walpole was waiting inside, a benign smile on his face.

"How are you feeling today, Dean?" he asked, all gentleness and false sincerity.

Dean swallowed past his panic and turned to leave but Greg and Bruce were there behind him, catching him gently but firmly by the arms and turning him around toward the entrance.

"Come on, buddy," Greg said reassuringly. "You'll be fine. It's ok."

"No," Dean whispered, his voice suddenly ghosted away by blinding, knee-buckling fear. "No, no-no-no-no…" He dug his bare heels into the ground but was led forward by the two orderlies.

"We're going to try a new round of treatment," Dr. Walpole explained in his patronizingly calm voice. "Don't worry, you won't feel a thing."

"Get the hell away from me, you sadistic sonovabitch!" Dean spat, trying to wriggle free from the arms holding him.

"Dean," Cheryl said sharply, stepping in front of him and placing both hands on his shoulders. She waited until she had his full attention, waited for him to pry his panic-stricken eyes away from the doctor.

"Dean, listen to me," she said firmly. "I'm right here, ok? I'm right here with you and I'll be here the entire time. I know you're scared – the electroshock treatment can be pretty intimidating – but people all over the world get this treatment without suffering any pain or lingering side-effects. Ok? We're not going to hurt you."

"I don't want it," Dean whispered, pleading, to her. "Scares me."

"I know," she said. "But I promise you, you won't feel a thing. We're going to use an anaesthetic – standard procedure – and then a muscle relaxant to prevent any damage to you during the seizure. At worst you'll feel some stiffness in your joints, like a dull ache, and probably a headache for the first hour or so afterwards."

"I'll be right here," she assured him. "I'll be administering the IV, checking your heart rate and making sure that everything's fine. The procedure itself only lasts about twenty seconds. Ok?"

"You'll be ok, man," Bruce said, giving Dean's elbow, which was still clamped firmly in his grip, a reassuring squeeze. "Listen, my aunt goes in for electroshock treatments all the time for her depression. Big tough guy like you? This'll be a walk in the park."

"Sure," Dean said weakly. "You wanna go for a test run first? Show me how it's done?"

He didn't struggle when they led him towards the bed, and instead eased himself with shaky-limbed unease onto the mattress, where his wrists and ankles were promptly secured in the leather bindings. His heart was racing, but he tried to summon some semblance of calm. There were witnesses here, among them a nurse that he trusted. Walpole couldn't do anything evil to him here. They'd know it if he did.

"What's this?" Cheryl asked, noticing the two syringes already laid out on a tray for her.

"I thought Suzanne was going to be assisting today and had her prepare everything," Dr. Walpole explained.

"Oh," Cheryl said, surprised. "Strange."

She set to work setting up the IV, easing it in to the vein in the back of Dean's left hand so smoothly he barely felt the sting.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to need consent for this type of thing?" Dean asked, watching as Cheryl held the first syringe to the light and tapped it for bubbles before inserting its sharp tip into the IV stem.

"The criminally insane can't give consent," Dr. Walpole said. "The State decides on cases like yours on a case-by-case basis, before a Judge."

"Peachy," Dean muttered, feeling his eyelids begin to droop as the drugs rushed their way into his system. He waited for the numbness to take over but it didn't come. Instead, he felt himself sinking into unconsciousness to the sounds of the voices around him growing ever distant.

888

She watched his eyelids flutter and his breathing slow as the anaesthetic took over, easing him into unconsciousness. _Such a handsome young man_, she thought. _Such a shame_. She then picked up the second syringe, tapped it for bubbles, and injected it into the IV stem. Quickly and efficiently she set up the heart monitor, wheeling it behind the bed so that it wouldn't be in the way, and then daubed a glob of conducting jelly to her patient's temples. Last but not least, she gently slid the rubber block into his mouth, between his teeth, to prevent him shattering them with the force of the seizure, and then attached the electrodes to his temples.

"We're all set to go, Doctor," she announced.

"Thank you, Cheryl," Dr. Walpole replied, smiling faintly at the unconscious form of Dean Winchester before he flicked the switch.

Something was wrong. Cheryl's brow drew into an immediate frown when Dean emitted a pitiful grunt from deep in his chest as his body immediately began to convulse; his heart rate skyrocketed almost instantly.

"Dr. Walpole!" she shouted, alarm snaking its way up her spine. "He's in pain! We have to stop!"

"What?" he asked distractedly, watching the timer on the machine.

"We have to stop!" Cheryl repeated, reaching for the button.

"Wait!" he said, his head tilted back and his lips parted as he continued to watch the seconds tick by. "Almost done…. There."

He flicked the switch. The seizure stopped and Dean's body went still.

"Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Cheryl exclaimed, prying the rubber block from Dean's mouth and removing the electrodes with trembling fingers.

"What the hell happened?" she demanded. "That boy could feel every second of that!"

"I'm not sure," Dr. Walpole said thoughtfully, looking visibly alarmed. "It looks like Suzanne made some kind of mistake."

"Then why didn't you stop when I told you to?" Cheryl pressed angrily. "I swear to God, you doctors are little more than butchers."

"Heart rate coming back to normal," he observed casually, jotting down a few notes on the chart. "All right. Be sure that he gets some water when he wakes up, and then take him back to his room. He's done for the day, I think."

And with that he turned on a heel and left.

"Cocksucker," Greg muttered under his breath, then made an apologetic sort of face when he noticed that Cheryl was looking at him.

She smiled instead and then turned her attention back to her patient. _God, I'm sorry Dean_, she thought. She had promised him that he wouldn't feel a thing, and then had foolishly injected him with some kind of sedative that had apparently done little more than knock him out, when she should have tossed both syringes in the trash and started from scratch, measuring out the drugs herself. Suzanne would be getting a stern talking-to, no doubt about it, but the blame really fell on her own shoulders.

She carefully removed the IV from his left hand and then undid the straps around his wrists and ankles, and then pulled up a chair and sat next to his bed, taking his right hand in hers and holding it, more to comfort herself than to comfort him. Her hands shook when she thought about Dean's piteous groan of pain, forced from his unconscious body by the sheer severity of the agony that must have been slicing through his brain.

"He'll be ok," Greg told her. But she could tell by his saucer-wide eyes that he was as shaken by today's mistake as she was.

After another twenty five minutes or so of awkward silence, Dean finally stirred. His eyes opened and he stared ahead at the ceiling for a long while, too disoriented, she knew, to do anything else. His soft, full lips parted slightly, and he blinked a few times before his brow drew together with the pain in his head.

"How you hangin' in there, kiddo?" she asked, releasing his hand and getting back up on her feet to help get him ready to take back to his room.

He didn't reply, but raised a hand sluggishly to his forehead as a grimace stole its way across his handsome features, crinkling the skin around his straight nose.

"You're ok," she whispered as she disconnected him from the heart monitor and slid it to the side. "You're ok."

They sat with him for a few more minutes until he began to stir, tentatively, groggily, easing himself up into sitting position with a loud groan. He was clearly disoriented, but Cheryl could see the world coming back to him as the pain in his head began to recede a bit and the fog began to clear.

"How are you feeling?" Cheryl asked.

"Like I just got run over by a truck," Dean groaned, sliding his feet over the side of the gurney. "God, how long was I out?"

"Almost forty minutes," she replied. "Come on, let's get you back to your room."

"Wait." Dean paused before easing himself down to the floor. "Did I…?" He reached a hand between his legs and felt for wetness and sighed in relief when he felt the dry cotton of his pants. "Oh thank God."

Cheryl's memory flashed back to Dean's soiled appearance earlier that morning and immediately alarm bells went off inside her head. It couldn't be… She knew very well from his chart that he had never been in for electro treatment before today. But his instinctive, knee-jerk reaction to check for urine, had been reflexive, as though he expected it to be there… from experience.

"Let's get you back to your room," she repeated, banishing that particularly bleak train of thought. But in spite of herself, she couldn't help wondering if the mix-up with the anaesthetic had been a mix-up after all.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam unpacked his suitcase, carefully refolding each item and placing them in the drawers of the large bureau of their hotel room, while Jess towelled her hair dry, watching him with a smile crooking up the side of her mouth. She found his odd, OCD organizational habits to be truly adorable and noticed that they tended to veer toward military perfection when he was nervous or anxious about something. She supposed she understood why he would be anxious now.

"Sam, you need to relax," she said, pulling the tiny pyjama top over her head and onto her shoulders. "Everything's going to be fine tomorrow. You'll see."

He turned to her and smiled, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly when she rested her hand there.

"It's just, I hate seeing him like that," he said sadly. "And I'm worried that it'll be upsetting to you."

"You'll be with me," Jess replied. "I'll be fine so long as you're with me."

Sam turned and kissed her lightly on the lips.

"God, what would I do without you?" he asked, not for the first time.

"Crash and burn," she teased, not for the last time.

"So when we get there tomorrow," he said soberly, "they'll take us to a room that they call the Common Visiting Area. It's sort of like a loungy, game room, only it's for visitors. They take the patients in there first and let them mill around for a while to get comfortable. To keep them calm." When Jessica raised a questioning eyebrow, he explained further.

"Sometimes the patients get upset when they get moved around. I guess with all the different treatments, moving from one part of the hospital to the other can make them anxious. So when they get visitors, they like to let them unwind in the CVA, get used to it in there, before the visitors are allowed in. So Dean'll be waiting for us when we get there. Then they'll let us in to see him. There'll be chairs and tables and chess boards – with no chess pieces – everything very relaxed, if you can ignore the guards and orderlies and nurses and doctors and howling nutjobs."

Jessica swallowed hard.

"There could be three or four other patients in there," Sam warned. "It'll depend on how many of them have visitors coming. But the point is, they'll be sort of loose, though closely watched."

"Ok," Jess said. "That sounds ok."

"It can be disturbing," Sam went on. "Sometimes the patients get upset and start screaming or lash out… And then the doctors have to restrain them and take them away. So just in case… Well, I just want you to be prepared to see the worst, ok?"

"Ok," Jessica said again, nodding.

"All right," he said, giving her another kiss, this time on the forehead. "Let's get a good night's sleep, then. We'll go see my dad in the morning – yes, you finally get to meet him – and we'll have plenty of time to make it for our appointment at 11:00."

"Hang on," she said, draping her arms around his neck and leaning in close, planting a delicate kiss on his soft lips. "I want to see what I can do, first, to help ease some of your stress about tomorrow morning."

Her hands ran up the length of his chest, unbuttoning his shirt as they trailed upwards.

He grinned, his lids heavy with contentment.

"What would I do without you?" he asked again, but her reply was lost in the tangle of tongues and lips.

He drew her to him, feeling relief washing over him under the tender ministrations of his life's joy, tossing the tiny Smurf pyjama top carelessly to the ground as he eased her onto the bed.

888

He awoke to the feeling of someone tugging on his shoulder, gently shaking him.

"Come on, Dean," Cheryl's voice called through the fog of sleep. "Up and attem, kiddo."

"Up and at them," Dean groaned with a dopey smile, thinking of an oft-quoted line from the Simpsons as he rolled onto his back and stared blearily up at the nurse looming over him. "'Z'it morning already?"

"It is," she chimed sweetly. "And we've got a big surprise for you today, so you've got to get up."

Greg was standing behind Cheryl, a bright smile plastered on his face. Dean had been noticing that Cheryl had been particularly sweet to him since his last round, or what she believed was his first round, of electroshock therapy. He idly wondered if it had to do with the incident in the shower, or if it was something else. She seemed almost to be attempting to make up for something, as though she felt guilty. Now, however, she was wearing a grin as big as Greg's.

"What is it?" Dean asked, daring to hope that the surprise meant he had a visitor coming today. He climbed out of bed, his bare feet recoiling in momentary shock against the cold floor.

"You've got a visitor coming today," Cheryl said. "Your brother Sam…"

"Sammy?" Dean was on his feet in a flash. "Sammy's coming!"

He grabbed Cheryl in a bear hug and gave her a hearty squeeze, releasing her when he saw the hesitant step Greg made towards him.

"Sorry," Dean apologized, holding his hands out in front of him in complete surrender. "Just got a little over-excited. I'd have hugged you first but you were too far away, and I'm too manly."

Greg made a grunting sort of face and clenched a fist in manly acknowledgment.

"So Sam's coming," Dean said, breathless with excitement. "When? What time?"

"At 11:00," Cheryl replied. "So let's go get you some breakfast, and then how about a shower and a shave?"

"Cheryl, I could kiss you," Dean exclaimed. Then he remembered that he already had, and he tried to ignore the blush that he saw rising in her cheeks.

All matters of pride and lost dignity were forgotten today. Sam was coming. Dean ate his breakfast with relish, swallowing each bite with minimal chewing, and then gulped down his daily medicinal cocktail of multi-coloured pills. He ignored the throbbing pain that had been stabbing through his foot since the electroshock – suspecting he had broken a bone during the seizure – and danced on the balls of his feet in anticipation of his shower. Sammy was coming. The steaming water soothed him for the first time since he'd gotten here, and he let it rain down on him, washing away the pain and fear of the last few weeks. Because Sammy was coming.

When Cheryl had finished with the final swipe of the razor, running a wet cloth over Dean's now smooth jaw to wash away the last remnants of shaving cream, Dean felt like a new man.

"Do I… look ok?" he asked hopefully.

Cheryl smiled warmly.

"Have you _seen_ you?" she teased, then answered seriously, "You look like a movie star, kid."

"Good," Dean said, looking nervously ahead at nothing. "Good."

He knew it was vain, and given his current circumstances, entirely pointless, but he wanted to look good for his baby brother's visit. He wanted Sam to look at him and see _him_, and not some lunatic who happens to share enough common alleles to denote brotherhood. Because the fact was he didn't know what his relationship with Sammy was supposed to be like in this twisted reality. Were they close? Did they get along? Had Sam cared about him before the craziness started, or had Dean always been a big dark family secret, even before the 'psychotic break'?

And more than anything, Dean needed Sam to see him, needed him to understand that he didn't belong here – that the whole world was off-kilter and needed to be set right. If Sammy couldn't help him then no one could, and Dean would have to accept that this hell was going to be his life forever. So Dean wanted to look good, and clean, and sane. As much as was humanly possible in this shithole loony bin, Dean wanted, needed, to look normal.

And so he waited. Cheryl led him to the Common Visiting Area, where he took a seat at one of the backgammon tables, and waited until it was time to see Sam. He tried conditioning himself to not flinch or brush at the crawling beneath his skin – the meds by now having taken full effect. He struggled for that clarity that he had felt earlier this morning, willing his mind to work at full-speed instead of on slow-mode. He felt good: as good as he could feel given the circumstances. And so he waited.

888

She held Sam's hand tightly in hers, feeling the sweatiness in her palms as her heart beat a little wildly in her chest and butterflies danced in her stomach. It was harder coming in here than she had thought, and from the moment she laid eyes on the ominous stone walls of the Golden Brook Asylum, with its protruding stone slabs that made it appear as though it had been carved out of bedrock and its long narrow windows that reminded her eerily of the embrasures for archers in medieval castles, she had felt uneasy. The very building itself gave her the creeps before she even stepped foot inside it.

The inside of the building, she thought with a shudder, was infinitely worse. There were distinct smells and sights that clearly indicated that the place was, to all intents and purposes, a hospital, but the oppressive gloom, heavy, secured steel doors, empty, quiet corridors, and patrolling guards left no doubt that Golden Brook Asylum was a prison. Serial rapists and child molesters of the worst kind were housed here, too far gone in their own sick fantasies to be safe with the general prison population. Dangerous and entirely delusional murderers dwelt within these walls, among them Dean Winchester, Sam's older brother.

Jessica schooled her face to be a mask of friendly calm, but already her throat felt tight and dry, her cheeks flushed. Sam loved his brother, and she wanted to love him too, but it was hard to imagine being able to make any kind of connection with an inmate from this place. It scared her. She pulled on every resource of strength that she had to quell the slight tremor running through her, and felt a reassuring squeeze in her hand as Sam felt the evidence of her fear through his palm.

"It's ok," he whispered as the guard led them through one of the massive, clanging, buzzing steel doors.

They made their way down a short corridor that branched off with a room at one end and a reception area on the left. The room was open and very bright, with windows running along the entire length of the top portion of the corner walls. She could see chairs and tables and what looked like a ping pong table inside, while several patients in housecoats and hospital pants wandered around aimlessly. There were four guards in the room, as well as two orderlies and a nurse.

"Can I get you to sign in here, Mr. Winchester?" the woman behind the reception desk droned.

Sam promptly complied, bringing Jessica up behind him to sign the register to be admitted to see Dean. Then the guard led them to the door outside the Common Visitor's Room and swiped his key card along the key pad beside the door. The door gave a loud buzz and clicked, and she heard Sam take a deep breath before placing his palm on the door and giving it a gentle push open.

Following closely on Sam's heels, Jessica stepped through the door and into the room, her eyes quickly scanning for Dean Winchester, who she had envisioned as a larger, darker, slightly-evil looking version of Sam, but no such figure lurked within these walls. There was a tall, lanky, skeletal man with salt and pepper hair in a lime green housecoat who was talking to the wall, and who was obviously too old to be Dean; she saw a bloated-looking woman with frighteningly white skin and dark eyes, her frizzy dark hair a perfect cobweb of black around her pasty face; a short, pudgy man with a receding hairline stood up expectantly on their arrival, but he too looked too old to be Sam's brother. But then she realized that the person she was looking for was directly in front of her, blocked from view by Sam's large frame.

"Sammy," she heard a voice half-whisper, half-croak, and then arms were engulfing Sam in a rib-crushing hug.

"You came!" the voice said.

She watched as Sam's shoulders relaxed as he returned the hug, taking his older, and shorter, brother in his arms with equal ferocity. They stood there a moment, squeezing the life out of each other, until they finally separated and stood mutely staring at each other.

Whatever she had expected to see, it was not the gorgeous young man standing in front of her. His features were so delicate, his lips so full, and his lashes so long and curled, they were almost feminine, but for the strong cut of his jaw, the masculine cleft in his chin (like Sam's), and the steely, intense cast of his eyes. He was both pretty and ruggedly handsome, with short cropped sandy blonde hair and just the hint of freckles on his cheekbones and on the bridge of his nose. Though stockier than her Sam, he was quite a bit shorter, with narrower hips and slightly bowed legs, giving him the stance of a cowboy. She noticed in passing that his feet were completely bare.

"Dean, there's someone I want you to meet," Sam was saying, drawing her out of her ruminations in time to pull up the calm friendly mask.

But Dean's eyes met hers with what was unmistakably recognition. His face lit up, his eyes bright and wide in shock and amazement.

"Jessica!" he said, awestruck, and before she knew it he had wrapped his arms around her in a similar bear hug. "You're alive!"

She held her hands out at her sides, frightened by the odd familiar response she was getting from Sam's brother, and flinched when she heard a loud bang on the table nearby as one of the guards clapped a baton down in warning.

"Dean!" he intoned, and Dean immediately let go, taking a step back.

"I'm sorry," Dean apologized, looking from Jessica to Sam, and then from Sam to Jessica, overcome with happiness at seeing them both standing there.

Sam, it appeared, was just as baffled by Dean's response to Jessica as she was. His brows were drawn together in confusion and he was looking at his brother sceptically, as though searching through his memory bank for any time he might have mentioned her to him, but Jessica knew that he hadn't.

"Come and sit down," Dean said, motioning them to take a seat at a backgammon table nearby. They followed his lead and each took a seat.

"How did you –" Sam asked, flustered. "How do you know about Jessica?"

Dean licked his lips and smiled at Sam.

"Dude, I met her in Palo Alto when I came to pick you up to find Dad, remember?" Then his face fell. "No wait. You _wouldn't_ remember that. _Crap_."

"You know what?" Sam said, his smile returning. "It doesn't matter. Dad probably told you about her, right?"

"Right," Dean said evasively. "So… you're here. You came! God, if I'd have known you were coming I'd have baked a cake."

He paused and smiled awkwardly, waiting for them to laugh at his joke, but they were both too nervous and just looked at him.

"Tough crowd," Dean muttered.

"So you're looking good," Sam complimented with relief. "You look… better than the last time I saw you."

"Yeah, I was pretty out of it last time, huh?" A haunted look passed over Dean's eyes, but it was only fleeting. He made an effort to force a smile, putting on what Jessica knew was a brave face. "Ok, so listen Sam, I need to talk to you."

"Sure, Dean. What do you want to talk about?"

Dean hesitated, looking around the room cautiously, making sure no one was listening in. He jerked his head toward his shoulder, as though flicking a fly off of his ear, and then leaned over the table.

"I need you to do me a favour. A big favour. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?" he asked conspiratorially. "I need you to write this down."

Sam padded at his empty pockets, and Jessica shrugged sadly, as neither of them had been allowed to bring anything in with them.

"Ok, fine," Dean said. "It's all right. I just need you to remember this name then, ok, Sammy? Can you do that?"

"Sure, Dean."

"Don't patronize me, Sam," Dean warned. "Are you gonna do this or not?"

"I said yes, Dean. What's the name?"

Dean took a deep breath.

"Bobby Singer," he said. "Full name Robert Stephen Singer. I need you to find him. He has a scrap yard in South Dakota."

Sam looked skyward and heaved a sigh.

"And what am I supposed to say to Bobby Singer?" he asked, sounding tired and resigned.

"I need you to tell him about me," Dean whispered. "About how I'm here when I'm not supposed to be. About how everything changed."

"Dean…" Sam protested.

"Just… please," Dean pleaded. "Find Bobby and ask him…" His voice broke and he struggled to control his emotions. "Ask him if it's possible for someone to change reality. Like if there's a spell, or a genie, or a gateway to alternate realities… whatever. Just ask him to find out if this kind of thing is possible."

"I'm in the middle of a school year, Dean," Sam said patiently. "How am I supposed to find this guy and talk to him?"

"Well you could call him, but he'd hang up on you," Dean said, thinking out loud. "No, you'd have to meet him in person. If he's never met you he wouldn't talk to you over the phone. And since he's never met me either – at least not _here_ anyway – it's not like I can vouch for you or anything."

"_Oh my God_," Sam whispered under his breath, trying to suppress his growing irritation. "Dean, listen to me. I can't go traipsing around the country looking for random people to talk about your problems, ok? Have you been talking to your therapists?... Have you… have you been trying to tell them about these things? Maybe someone here at the hospital could contact this Bobby person for you."

Dean looked as though he had been slapped, and Jessica felt a tiny stab in her heart for the look of pain that danced in his intense green eyes. She gave Sam's hand a gentle squeeze to try to convey to him, somehow get through to him through that touch, that he needed to be gentler, more understanding. Sam turned to her at her touch and their eyes met. His frown softened and he looked back at Dean.

"Dean, I'm sorry…"

"There's no one else, Sam," Dean said, his eyes misting. "And I'm asking you. My whole life, I've never asked you for anything."

"I know," Sam agreed, nodding emphatically. "I know, but Dean –"

"You're my brother, and I need you…" He choked back the emotion. "I need you to do this for me, please. Please."

"Ok, but I don't see how –"

"You like it at Stanford, right?" Dean asked, cutting him off. "You like living with Jessica, like going to school and doing the whole Joe Normal thing, right?" He watched and waited for Sam to nod in agreement.

"Ok, so just imagine for a second that you went to sleep last night, with your lovely hot chick Jessica lying next to you, and then you woke up this morning here. And then a month and a half later, you're still here."

"Dean –"

"And everybody tells you that you're some kind of psycho, and that you've been locked up for the last four and a half years, only you know different because you've been living in Palo Alto and falling asleep next to Jessica in her sexy Smurfy PJs every night. Would you be ok sitting through endless therapy sessions, being force fed mind-numbing drugs that make your fucking skin crawl, and being strapped down while some crazy-ass doctor electro fries your brain for kicks?"

"Cos if it were the other way around, and you needed me, I'd drive to freakin' Alaska to talk to Bobby Singer or Ronald Fucking Mcdonald, if it meant I could maybe get you out."

Sam was stunned into silence.

"We'll do it," Jessica said quietly. "We'll talk to this guy for you, ok?"

It was breaking her heart seeing the desperation in his eyes, hearing the warbling of his voice as he tried not to cry, and deep down she knew that there would be no harm in talking to this man about Dean. He was probably someone Dean had read about or had met years ago, but that didn't matter. If he didn't know Dean, or didn't have any answers, at least they'd know they'd tried. Sam had been listening to these kinds of pleas and requests for years now, and no doubt was beyond tired of it, but Jessica felt that Dean needed to be humoured right now. It couldn't hurt them to try on his behalf.

"What exactly do you want us to say to him, and ask him?" Sam asked, taking a deep, steadying breath.

"You mean you'll really talk to him?"

Sam nodded and Jessica nodded as well, smiling warmly.

"Ok, well you'll know his place when you get there by the hubcaps that are sort of nailed to the side of his house. He's got this big dog, Rumsfeld – looks fierce but he's pretty old and useless by now. The place looks like a scrap heap, but he's got more books on supernatural lore than anyone I've ever met," Dean explained in a rush, so intensely relieved he could barely contain himself. "If anyone could ever figure this out, it'd be Bobby."

"Ok," Sam said.

"Tell him that I'm a hunter – he'll know what that means. Tell him that something happened to change reality… like a wish or… I don't know what. But tell him that things aren't supposed to be this way. And Sam, I need _you_ to find out everything you can about Dr. Walpole."

"Your doctor?" Sam asked incredulously. Dean shushed him, eyes darting about the room nervously.

"Yeah, Dr. Walpole," Dean whispered. "The guy's a frickin' psycho. I need you to find out everything you can about him. I think… I think he might be the one behind this stuff…"

"Winchester!" one of the guards suddenly shouted, stalking towards the table and stepping up behind Dean. "What's that you've got there?"

"Got where?" Dean asked, completely perplexed.

The guard bent down and reached behind Dean's back, producing a butter knife that looked as though it had been filed down to a sharp point.

"What the hell is that?" Dean asked, looking up at the guard in total bewilderment.

"All right, meeting's over," the guard said at once, placing his hands on Dean's shoulders and pulling him out of his seat.

"Nonononono," Dean said urgently. "We weren't finished."

"Did one of you sneak this in to him?" the guard asked accusingly, gazing at Sam and Jessica with narrowed eyes.

"No," Sam assured him, wide-eyed. "Look, I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding."

"Come along, Dean," the guard said forcefully. "I said meeting's over."

"That's not mine!" Dean growled, pulling his shoulders free of the guard's grip. "Get your freakin' hands off me."

"Hang on!" Sam shouted. "I just hugged him a few minutes ago and he didn't have any knife on him!"

Jessica could see his cheeks flushing with red, flushing with anger. And in a heartbeat everything went to Hell.

One of the four guards suddenly stalked towards Sam, baton raised menacingly, as he made to usher him toward the wall. Sam instinctively resisted, so the guard shoved him, pressing his baton against Sam's throat and literally pinning him against the wall.

"You sonovabitch!" Dean snarled, hauling back and punching the guard behind him so hard there was a cracking sound. The man fell to the ground with a grunt and lay completely still.

Then the remaining two guards were upon him, batons swinging.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, struggling against the baton at his throat, but his voice broke off in a strangled choke at the pressure.

"Sam!" Jessica cried, her knees trembling so hard she could feel them knocking together. She wanted to go help Sam but was rooted to the spot with fear, so she could only watch in mute horror as Sam remained pinned helplessly against the wall while Dean was promptly buried in a sea of bodies as the two guards and two orderlies tackled him to the ground.

Dean fought with the desperation of a wild animal, and if the guards hadn't been armed Jessica felt sure he would have been able to overpower all four of them. Every strike he made was quick, precise, and devastating, meeting its target with a sickening crunching or cracking sound. Arms grabbed desperately at him, trying to hold him still, but he flailed with the desperation of a drowning man. Then one of the guards made a heavy strike with his baton, catching Dean hard in the face and dizzying him long enough for them to grab a hold of his arms and pin him at last.

"Hold him!" the larger of the orderlies growled, fumbling with the cap of a syringe while the remaining three struggled to keep Dean still.

"No!" Dean cried, redoubling his efforts to break free. He squirmed and writhed, letting out a pitiful moan of protest when the needle was jabbed into his thigh. Then his struggles immediately began to cease, his face and limbs went slack as the drug flooded through his system.

"S'my," he mumbled feebly, his eyes drooping lazily.

Jessica could not stop the tears that tumbled freely down her cheeks.

888

"Get your things. We're going!" Sam thundered, stalking towards the car with a look of fierce determination on his face.

"Where are we going?" Jessica asked, running to keep up with him as he pounded his way out of the building and through the parking lot.

"South Dakota."


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks so much to everyone for reading this bizarre little tale, and for leaving comments and reviews! The first 14 chapters of this are already written, so you should be getting updates steadily. However, it's not completed yet. I hope to have it finished by the time we're caught up here -- so fingers crossed... But no promises. ;)

Thanks for sticking with me!

888

Jessica's hands shook as she gripped the steering wheel tight, trying to keep her eyes on the road and watch Sam at the same time as her Corolla sped along the highway. He was in deep research mode, several web pages open at once on his laptop as he pored over it greedily. He had barely spoken two words together since they'd left Golden Brook, and that had been over two hours ago. She wanted to talk to him, wanted to find out what was going on inside his head, but she was afraid. She had never seen him look so angry or so upset. And she was also in shock.

She couldn't wrap her head around what she had seen. It was baffling, disturbing, and heart-breaking. Sam's brother had seemed so… normal. There was nothing about him that screamed paranoid schizophrenic, unless of course you counted his whole version of reality thing. But he had seemed so earnest, so certain, that the world he lived in was not the one he was meant to be in. And she couldn't get it out of her head – his comment about her Smurfy pyjamas… How could he possibly know? But then, he had said he'd met her before.

None of it made any sense, and she was frightened to her core because a part of her believed him. Dean was convinced that someone was out to get him, which is common enough for people with his illness, but she couldn't deny that the guards had sprung into action, breaking up their conversation, the moment Dean had asked Sam to look into Dr. Walpole. Was that a coincidence? And Sam had vouched for his brother – insisted that Dean hadn't been carrying any weapon. And that meant what, exactly? That the damned guard planted the knife on Dean? That they had broken up the discussion _on purpose_?

She just really needed to talk to Sam.

"Son of a bitch," he suddenly hissed, his eyes wild.

"What is it?" Jessica's heart was drumming heavily against her chest.

"Son of a bitch!" he repeated. He was fuming with anger. "Walpole had a daughter. Four years ago he was working as a psych consult in an ER in Miami. His daughter, Gwen, who was nineteen years old at the time, was arrested that year for murdering a little boy. The court psychiatrist found she wasn't mentally fit to stand trial and she was sent to Belleview for extensive psychological treatment. And get this – she swore up and down that the kid she killed was a demon, and that she knew he was a demon because she'd been possessed by one for eight months."

"What the hell does that mean, Sam?" Jessica asked.

"I don't know!" Sam admitted. "But it's got to mean something. I mean Dean's got this creepy new doctor who just happens to have a daughter who's locked up in an asylum for committing almost the exact same crime as Dean? Right around the same time? That's one hell of a coincidence."

"I don't understand," Jessica said shakily. "I don't understand! How can… How can that doctor have made your brother kill someone? Or make it look like he killed someone? Or alter reality so that your brother's whole life was changed? I mean, what, does that mean that our lives aren't real?"

"I don't know!" Sam cried, frustrated, angry, and ready to pull his hair out. "Jess, I don't know!"

"And why Dean?" she pressed. "Why would he randomly pick Dean to ruin his life for no reason? It just doesn't make any sense!"

"You're right, it doesn't." Sam took several deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. "It doesn't. But something's not right, Jess. You know something's not right."

"I know," she admitted. "Sam, I'm scared."

"Me too," he said, staring ahead.

888

"Come on, Dean," she coaxed quietly, tilting the spoon of applesauce into his mouth and praying that this time he would swallow.

His eyes were staring vacantly ahead, not looking at her, not taking in the sight of anything. Cheryl noted the sickly, pallid colour of his skin and began to grow worried. She knew that, even through the heavy, heavy fog of the drugs, Dean Winchester was in there somewhere, and that he could bring himself to swallow when she spoon fed him, but he seemed content to allow it to pool in his mouth until he choked on it or until it dribbled out.

"Please, kiddo," she whispered, her voice breaking at the sight of him looking so lost, so helpless as he lay there, drugged to a vegetative stupor and strapped to his bed. "Just take a few bites for me, huh? I know you can hear me. And I know that this sucks. But you've got to eat something. Got to keep your strength up, huh?"

"We can set him up with an IV if he refuses to eat," Dr. Walpole's voice suddenly rang out behind her, making her jump.

"It's been three days," she said sternly. "Hasn't he had enough?"

The doctor made his way to the bedside, where Cheryl was seated alongside Dean, and looked down upon his patient.

"I understand that you have a soft spot for him," he said kindly. "He's very charming, and no doubt has wheedled his way into that motherly heart of yours. But Dean Winchester is dangerous, Cheryl. He's barely been here two months and he has already had several violent outbursts, and all of them unprovoked. Just think what might have happened if he'd gotten that weapon past the Visiting' area."

"I just find that so hard to believe," she admitted. "And I'm not so sure that his 'outbursts' have been outbursts at all. From what I've heard he's only ever tried to get away."

"He broke an orderly's nose," Dr. Walpole said, "and broke a security guard's jaw – with one punch. The man doesn't know his own strength, but when he strikes he is deadly."

"But I spoke with Suzanne," Cheryl protested. "She was there in the CVA and she said Dean didn't do anything more than shrug off our security man – until they went after his brother."

"Yes, well, his brother is no longer allowed on these premises," he warned. "I can see now that the violent streak runs in the family."

"That guard attacked a visitor, John," Cheryl said, aghast. "For no reason. Pinned him against a wall for trying to defend his brother's innocence."

Dr. Walpole cocked his head to the side and eyed Cheryl suspiciously. She watched as his lip curled into a sneer.

"I think I see what's going on here," he said coldly. "Winchester was famous for being quite the Casanova over at Stafford, and I had hoped that we wouldn't be seeing a repetition of that kind of deplorable behaviour among our staff here…"

"Just what are you suggesting?" she demanded.

"Well I think it's obvious that there is something untoward going on here," he said. "You spend an unhealthy amount of time watching over him."

"Oh don't be stupid," she spat. "You even think of throwing out an accusation like that against me I'll have you up on defamation charges so fast it'll make your head spin – not to mention going to the nurses' union."

That seemed to have put him in his place somewhat.

"I don't know what your beef is with this kid," Cheryl warned, "but it ends, or I'll bring in the ethics committee about that stunt you pulled with the electroshock therapy last week."

"_Excuse me?_" he asked.

"You heard me." She gave him a long hard look. "I make a better friend than I do an enemy, _Doctor_. And unless you want me to start digging, I suggest you ease the hell off."

He glared at her for a long moment, as if willing her to take back what she had said, but she stared him down until he finally turned on a heel and stormed out. As soon as he was gone Cheryl let out an explosive breath of relief and turned her attention back to Dean.

"You hear that?" she said, leaning close to his face. "I stuck my neck out on the line for you, so swallow your damned applesauce!"

She watched as the muscles in his neck contracted. With his dull eyes now looking at her, Dean swallowed.

"Atta boy," she said, brushing a blonde wisp of hair off of his forehead. "Now let's see if we can do that again."

888

"Wow. He really wasn't kidding when he said it was a junk yard."

Sam and Jessica stood outside a massive scrap heap of ruined cars, lost among mountains of rusted metal, broken glass, and discarded tires. It was where Sam imagined cars crawled off to die. He had managed to find Bobby Singer's salvaging business online by doing a Google search, and he and Jessica had made good time in getting there. Now that they had arrived, though, they both felt kind of silly.

"Well," Sam said. "Here goes nothing."

They made their way through the pathways of junk until they found the house, where to their immense surprise they saw the hubcaps on the side of the house, just as Dean had described, as well as the old dog, who started barking as soon as they approached the front porch.

"Rumsfeld?" Sam said tentatively, and the dog immediately quieted down.

They walked past the dog and climbed the porch steps, Sam giving a tentative knock on the door. When they didn't hear the sound of any movement or footsteps inside, Sam knocked a little bit harder. They waited, listening, but it appeared that no one was home. Then, just as they were turning to leave, the front door opened.

"Bobby Singer?" Sam asked politely, squinting in the mid-day sun. He took in the sight of the older man's scruffy appearance, his short cropped beard and moustache, his brown hair which was speckled with gray, and his faded blue and white ball cap.

"Can I help you?" the man asked, looking neither impressed with his visitors nor inclined to waste time actually helping them.

"Hi," Sam said. "I'm Sam. Sam Winchester. This is my girlfriend Jessica."

The man stood with his arms folded across his chest, waiting.

"My brother Dean sent us here to talk to you…?" That elicited no response. "He said that you'd know what to do because you're a hunter. And so is he…"

"He did?" Bobby said blankly, his eyes shifting carefully between the young man and the young woman before him. "Huh…"

Then, without warning, his unfolded his arms and flicked a flask of something liquid at them, splashing it in their faces, waiting breathlessly for their reaction. The trouble was, both were too shocked and confused to say anything.

"Never heard of any hunters named Winchester," Bobby said at last, folding his arms across his chest again.

"Yeah," Sam said hesitantly, wiping the water from his face and giving Jessica a significant look. "Dean – that's my brother – said that you might not know him in this reality."

Bobby stared at him blankly.

"Ok, this is going to sound crazy," Sam explained, "and considering its source, it probably totally is… But here goes… My brother seems to think that somehow the world was altered, and that he was transported from his reality to this one. And he said that this reality is all wrong, and that you could help us set things back to the way they're supposed to be."

"Uh-huh," Bobby replied sceptically. "And why isn't your brother here asking for my help and explainin' this stuff to me?"

"Well… he can't."

"Why not?"

"Because," Sam said. "He's in a mental institution."

And with that, Bobby snorted a laugh and turned, closing the door behind him, but Sam was fast and shot out a hand to prevent him from closing the door all the way.

"Please, wait!" Sam pleaded. "I just need you to hear me out. Please?"

Bobby paused.

"Dean says that he knows you from the other reality – he sent me here to talk to you. He said that our whole family are hunters, or are supposed to be hunters, but that for whatever reason things have changed. My brother's been locked up as a nutjob for saying he kills demons and monsters for a living."

Bobby's eyebrows went up.

"And he said that you do too," Sam added tentatively. "That you're a hunter… like him."

The older man heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes.

"Com on in then," he said gruffly, opening the door wide and motioning for them to follow him inside.

It was difficult to tell how much room there was inside the house for all the clutter. Everywhere Sam turned he saw stacks and mounds of books, lining shelves, spread out over tabletops, heaped in piles against the wall. There were books that were so old they looked as though they would fall apart if you were to touch the pages. There were bizarre symbols painted on the walls and ceilings, charms and strange-looking amulets hanging in the windows, and lines of salt along the window sills.

"All right," Bobby said. "Start from the beginning."

Sam did his best to explain what he understood Dean's situation to be. He told him about how Dean had taken care of him after their mom died, and about how he had gone over the edge after Sam had left for college. He told him about Dean's apparent delusions, the death of the girl, and Dean's subsequent committal to the asylum. And then he told him Dean's version of events: how their mother had been burned alive on their ceiling by a demon; how their father had taken up demon hunting to hunt down the thing that killed her to get revenge; how he and Dean had been raised as hunters; and inevitably how Dean had woken up one morning after a hunt to find himself an inmate at Golden Brook Asylum, in a world he claimed was not his.

"A fire in your nursery?" Bobby asked, his curiosity piqued at this particular piece of information.

"Yeah," Sam replied.

"And that's how your mom died in this life, and in Dean's version?"

"Yeah."

Bobby pursed his lips in thought.

"Where did this happen?"

"Lawrence, Kansas," Sam said. He really didn't see what this had to do with anything.

"All right, you two just sit tight a minute. I'll be right back."

A minute turned out to be forty-five. Bobby disappeared into his stack of books in the next room, rifling through parchments and charts and maps, and emerged with a very excited but troubled look on his face.

"I don't mean to alarm you, kid," he said carefully, "but I think your brother's right."

888

Sam took a moment to not pass out at the strange man's statement. Sam looked at Jessica to get some kind of confirmation that the world was still spinning on its axis, but she looked as baffled and bewildered as he felt.

"H-how so?" he forced himself to ask, coughing in an attempt to find his voice again.

"I been trackin' certain signs of demonic activity," Bobby explained, pointing at a heavily marked-up map.

"Signs of demonic activity?" It sounded so crazy coming from his lips he had to try very hard not to scoff.

"Cattle deaths. Electrical storms. Strange deaths. Demonic possessions," Bobby explained. "There was a surge of demonic activity in Lawrence Kansas in late October of 1983. Then it all stopped on November 2nd. Is that the day your mom died?"

Sam nodded, swallowing past the sudden constriction in his throat.

"See I noticed that somethin' strange was goin' on about two months ago. The number of demonic possessions have doubled, vengeful spirit attacks, monster attacks – they've all suddenly raised exponentially, like somethin' was sendin' everything out of whack." He made sure Sam was looking him in the eye before he proceeded. "Like there was a rift."

"A rift?"

"Like someone had changed somethin' and it left a hole," Bobby explained.

"What would leave a hole?" Sam asked, perplexed.

Bobby smiled.

"You. You, your daddy, and your brother. If you're all hunters, and someone's gone and changed it so's none of you ever were, that's cause for a major rift. Without soundin' too Star Trek on you, someone's messed with the Space/Time continuum, in changin' your family's place in this world. All the people you ever saved, all the monsters you ever killed – it's all reversed. The people are dead and the monsters are still kickin'. Creates a rift."

It was too much. It was all just too ridiculous. It couldn't be true. A rift in the Space/Time continuum? The man had to be joking. Or else he was as crazy as Dean. Sam idly wondered if maybe Dean had met Bobby Singer while he was at Stafford.

"You can't be serious," Sam said thickly.

"There's the door if you don't want my help," Bobby said blankly.

"It just doesn't make any sense," Sam argued. "If reality was changed, and Dad, Dean and I were changed from hunters to Joe Normal, then that would mean that those people died over the years, not in the last few months. And because the timeline was altered, it would mean that it had _always_ _been_ altered. So there wouldn't be any changes for you to notice."

"I see you're well read on time-travel theory," Bobby smirked. "True, if things were changed, it would appear to the world as if they'd always been that way. But – there's a butterfly effect to the supernatural. Changin' something that big creates a rift – those monsters and ghosts that your family hunted are now ragin' outta control. It's like the universe is trying to catch up with itself. I couldn't figure out why all these random supernatural occurrences all over the country seemed to have kicked into overdrive, when they'd been observing their normal patterns for decades or centuries… But a rift explains it."

"Ok, so say it was even possible," Sam conceded, "how the hell would someone be able to change something that huge? How would they be able to completely alter reality by making us not hunters? And why would they make this reality, where Dad and I are fine and Dean's in a mental hospital?"

"Well that's what your brother sent you to me to find out, ya idjit," Bobby said, chuckling.

888

It was a strange vantage point, poised as he was on the very edge of the precipice, looking over the deep chasm that led from the solid ground beneath his feet to the vast emptiness beyond. He looked out into the endless black depths ahead, an unending darkness that encompassed everything, swallowed everything up into nothing, and took a step back, noticing as he did so that the earth at his feet was crumbling. The ground shook, the world trembled, and then cracks appeared. Chunks of earth broke apart and fell away, disappearing instantly into the nothingness. Dean took another step back, terrified of plummeting off the edge, fearing that with every step the ground beneath him was giving way. At any moment he was going to fall.

"Dean?" Bruce's voice cut into his thoughts, startling him back to reality. "Dean. You ok?"

Dean felt his eyes coming back into focus and smiled wearily up at the orderly, whose face showed his concern.

"Yeah," Dean said absently. "I guess I just spaced out."

He'd been doing that a lot lately, ever since Sam's visit. Dean folded his arms across his chest and stared blankly ahead, trying to imagine away the sounds of Archie at the next table as he bemoaned the sad state of his talking cats.

So close to the edge…

He wanted to believe that Sam was keeping his promise, and had gone to meet Bobby Singer like he'd asked. But there was no way of knowing. He hadn't heard anything from Sam, and he knew now that he likely wouldn't. Dr. Walpole had made it very clear that Sam Winchester was officially blacklisted from the visitor's list at Golden Brook Asylum. And even if Sam did go to meet with Bobby, Dean wasn't entirely sure that Bobby would be willing or able to help. What if there was no such thing as hunters in this reality? What if there were no supernatural beings? Or what if… _God, what if_… Dean really was crazy, and all of the hunting stuff was part of an elaborate delusion.

He choked that thought down and buried it. _You know what's real, Dean. You've lived your whole life – your whole life – knowing that evil is out there. Just think of this as another hunt. You're on a hunt, and you got nabbed by the bad guy. This is just like being tied up in the underground mineshaft, waiting for the Wendigo to eat you. Sammy will come to save your sorry ass. Or Dad will come. Dad's the greatest hunter that ever lived – he'll figure out a way to save you._

_If only the great John Winchester could see his son now_…

That evil motherfucker Walpole knew what kind of a hero his Dad was: he knew somehow, and was doing this to bring him down a peg or two, to distract him, to get revenge… Dean didn't know why or how, but he felt instinctually that his dad was somehow tied up in this.

"Well we've got a message for you from your dad," Bruce said, snapping Dean back to attention.

"My dad?"

"Yeah," he explained. "He stopped by earlier to see you but was sent away because of what happened last week."

"Of course," Dean muttered. "No more visitors for Dean, because that would just be… freakin'… Oh God, I can't even think anymore. It would be something good, though, and Dean Winchester's not allowed to have anything good anymore."

"What's his message?" Dean asked. "Has he got cancer? My brother's been struck by lightening? The World Trade Centre got rebuilt and then bombed again?"

"Dean…"

"Yeah, I know," Dean apologized. "So what's the message?"

Bruce extended a folded piece of paper and handed it to Dean, which Dean promptly opened and read.

_Hey kiddo – Leaving town tomorrow for South Dakota to talk to Bobby. _

_Sam and Jess are already there._

_You are always in our thoughts – we haven't forgotten about you._

_Don't worry._

_L,_

_Dad_

Dean stared at the note for a full two minutes, holding it in trembling fingers. They had gone to see Bobby. They had gone to see Bobby, and now Dad was going to see Bobby too. _Omigod omigod omigod_. That had to mean that they believed him. Whatever Sam had found out from Bobby had obviously been compelling enough that he'd seen fit to bring their dad into it.

"You ok?" Bruce asked, seeing the tears that were freely streaming down Dean's cheeks.

"Huh?" Dean asked, so overcome with relief that someone finally believed him, and that they were finally going to do something to try to get him out, that he couldn't stem the tide as it washed over him.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat. "Yeah, I'm good. I'm great."

"Family reunion, huh?" Bruce suggested, looking significantly at the note.

Dean nodded and wiped the tears away. "Family reunion. Yeah."

His dad had been very careful in his wording, Dean noted. He probably didn't want the note to be confiscated. So that meant Sam had probably been able to dig up something on Walpole too, then. The foul stench of a conspiracy was in the air, and John Winchester was wise to it, his note to his son vague enough that it couldn't be obviously translated. But the meaning was clear enough. They had gone to Bobby Singer and they believed him now. And Dad was being brought in to help – he was in on their plans. And they wanted him to know that they weren't going to leave him there, that they were going to fix this.

He said a silent prayer of thanks to Sam and Jess for daring to follow his crazy instructions. It must have sounded so absurd, especially coming from him, but they'd done it to please him or to humour him, or to ease whatever bad feelings they had left over from their visit. Whatever their reasons, Dean was just happy they'd gone to see Bobby. For the first time since he got here, he was beginning to hope that he might actually get out, that this hell might actually have an end.

_Thank you Sam. Thank you Jess._

And then it hit him, like being steamrolled by a freight train. _Jess_. If they saved him, and somehow managed to set things back to the way they were supposed to be, Jess would die.

888

For a moment he sat completely numb, allowing the storm of thoughts to howl through his brain in wordless confusion, rushing through him, spinning out of control, without direction or focus. He gave them free rein to swirl in the empty spaces of his mind with wild abandon, unchecked, unspoken. He didn't want to put meaning to them. So he let them rage.

But despite his wishes, they began to take shape, breathing life to his fears. _Sam doesn't know what you're asking him to do. He doesn't know what you're asking him to sacrifice. And Jessica – she's an innocent girl who is in love with your brother. How can you let them do this? Can you really trade your happiness for her life?_

It all came down to simple mathematics. _Do the math, Dean. Pros and cons_. In Dean's world, he was moderately happy. Well, maybe happy wasn't the right word. Functional? Surviving? He was getting by. And Dad was a hero, though admittedly a hardened, dried husk of a man, his heart hollowed out with the loss of his wife. And Sam… Well Sam was barely holding on, grieving over the loss of Jess, struggling against his place in the hunter life, longing to go back to his college life. And Jess was dead.

In this world, John was living a normal life, though admittedly still something of a dried husk of a man. Dean was in an institution, locked away for the safety of the rest of society. Sam was living his dream in Palo Alto, going to law school at Stanford and building a life with the woman of his dreams. And Jess was alive.

So it came down to simple mathematics. _Your happiness or theirs, Dean? Sure, seeing you in an institution is breaking Dad's heart, but seeing Sammy get married some day and having grankids with Jessica, that'd ease the pain, wouldn't it? That would give him hope – more hope than he has in the hunting world where he's always worrying about you and Sammy getting killed on a job. And just think of all the horrible things Dad and Sammy will never have to see if they'd never been on the hunt… _It was a no brainer.

The earth cracked and crumbled beneath his feet and he felt himself slipping off the edge.


	7. Chapter 7

Warning: This chapter is a little steamy, though certainly not explicit. Just thought I'd give a heads up so as not to offend anyone's sensibilities.

888

"Cheryl, you'd better get out here quick!" Greg said urgently, bobbing his head through the staff room door long enough to utter the vague warning and then bobbing away again just as quickly.

She was on her feet in a heartbeat, heading down the corridor and following the sounds of Greg's footsteps on the tiled floor. She rounded the corner and slipped through the door before it clanged shut behind Greg. They were almost upon the entrance to the common room when she thought she heard someone singing.

"I think Winchester's finally lost it," he said wearily, swiping his card along the panel and pushing the door open when it buzzed.

As she passed through the door and made her way into the common room, she could distinctly hear the sound of someone singing, though she couldn't see where the sound was coming from. With the exception of one patient who was dozing dopily near the window, the room appeared to be empty.

"_The road is looonnng… With many a winding turn…_" someone sang, loudly and slightly off key.

Cheryl crept quietly through the room, passing through the tables and chairs until she finally saw Dean Winchester lying prone on his back on the floor, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

"_That leads us to who knows where… who knows where?" _

"Dean?" Cheryl called to him, calmly, quietly.

"_But I'm stroooooong!"_ Dean roared tunelessly, _"Strong enough to carry him."_ He smiled dopily up at her. "_He ain't heavy. He's my brother!_ Come on, sing with me Cheryl!"

"Honey, what happened?" she asked.

"_So on we go_!" Dean sang. "I don't hear you singing, Cheryl. _His welfare is my concern! No burden is he to bear… we'll get there._"

"All right, kiddo," Cheryl said, taking him by the hands and attempting to pull him up off the ground. "Come on, up you go."

"_For I knooooow… he would not encumber me! He ain't heavy – he's my brother!"_

"Dean!" she said. "How about you quiet down before the doctors come running in here, huh? Let's not make a scene."

"_If I'm laden!_" Dean's voice suddenly rang out, several decibels higher. "_At aaaall! I'm laden with sadness!_"

"What should we do?" Greg asked in a hiss, watching nervously for the approach of a guard or a doctor at the disturbance. It was thankfully a quiet day in the common room and no one seemed to be around to see or hear Dean's apparent meltdown. At least, not yet.

"_That everyone's heart… isn't filled with the gladness_. God that's gay_. Of looooove…. For one another…_"

"What's going on?" Bruce asked, jogging onto the scene at the sight of his two colleagues peering over a singing figure on the floor.

"_It's a long, long roooooad…"_

"Winchester's cracked," Greg supplied.

"Well quick, get him up! Get him up!" Bruce whispered. "Before Walpole shows up!"

"_From which there is nooooo return!"_

Greg and Bruce each grabbed an arm and hauled Dean to his feet. He smiled at them and rested his arms jovially around their shoulders.

"_While we're on the waaaaaaaaay… to there, why not share?"_

"Come on Dean," Cheryl coaxed. "Settle down!"

"Ok seriously Cheryl, what should we do?" Greg hissed again.

She bit her lip in thought.

"The staff bathroom across the hall," she said. "I'll see if I can't settle him with some coffee or something."

"Coffee!" Dean exclaimed. "Coffee would be awesome! _And the looooooooad! Doesn't. Weigh. Me. DOOOOWWWWN…. At all._"

"Crap! I thought he was done," Bruce muttered.

"_He ain't heavy_," Dean sang, beaming at him. "_He's my brother_."

Cheryl scurried off in the opposite direction, back to the staff room, while Greg and Bruce ushered Dean down the corridor to the bathroom, Greg fumbling nervously with the keys and making awkward glances over his shoulder. Once the three were safely stashed away inside, he bolted it to "Occupied" and urged Dean to sit down on the edge of the toilet.

"Whoa, whoa," Dean said, "this isn't going to turn into some kind of Shawshank man-love scene is it, 'cos I don't swing that way."

"You still with us?" Bruce asked tentatively, relieved that Dean appeared to have abandoned the singing.

"_Company always on the run_," Dean sang, his face bright with a vibrant grin as he began a new song, "_Destiny is the rising sun. Oh I was born 6-gun in my hand_…"

There was a gentle rap on the door, followed by Cheryl's whispered, "It's me! Let me in!" Bruce unlocked the door and Cheryl quickly bowed her way in, shutting it and locking it behind her.

"_Behind a gun I'll make my final stand… That's why they call me…"_

"Are you guys ok here by yourselves?" Greg asked. "I'm gonna head back out so at least someone's covering the lounge. If you need anything just give me a shout."

And with that he snuck out, leaving Cheryl and Bruce alone with Dean.

"_Bad company, and I won't deny!_"

Cheryl held out a steaming cup of coffee and Dean's singing stopped immediately. He took the cup in both hands and swallowed one massive scalding gulp, his nostrils flaring as he took a long, luxuriating sniff from the mug and his eyes rolled back in his head.

"There is nothing in the world coffee won't fix," he said eagerly, seeming to come to himself a bit.

Cheryl crouched down low, placing herself in front of Dean's knees.

"Dean, what happened?" she asked quietly.

He didn't answer, but continued to sniff at the coffee, savouring the warm steam rushing onto his chin and inhaling the sharp scent with an ecstatic look on his face.

"I gave him a note from his dad," Bruce explained, "and he seemed really happy. Then he got quiet – real quiet, and sat there for about two hours just staring. Then he started laughing. I asked him what was so funny and he said he needed to be quiet for a minute and laid down on the floor… That's when I came and got you."

"And then he started with the…" Cheryl supplied, but then paused and mouthed the word 'singing' to Bruce. He nodded and handed her the note, which Dean had left lying open on the table.

She read it and pursed her lips in thought.

"What freaked you out about this note, Dean?" she asked. He didn't reply.

"Dean, you've got to talk to me," she pressed. "If you walk out there all jacked up and crazy like you're acting right now, Walpole's gonna notice and he's gonna pounce. You don't want that, do you?"

"It doesn't matter," Dean said blankly, staring at the coffee.

"It matters to me," she said softly. "And it matters to Bruce, and to Greg, and to Suzanne. And I'm sure it matters to your dad, and your brother."

"Sammy," Dean whispered, smiling with haunted eyes.

"That's right," Cheryl said. "It matters to Sammy. Your brother wants you to get better Dean. He wants you to be healthy so you can get out of here."

His eyes met hers and she almost faltered at the broken, lost soul swimming in their glossy depths.

"Other things matter more," he said simply. "They matter more."

888

"Like what kind of things?" Cheryl asked.

"It doesn't matter," Dean said, shutting down. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Come on, Dean, you've gotta give me something. We're trying to help you."

"You can't help me," he said, staring into the coffee. "The two don't fit together, see? They just don't fit. And if me gettin' outta here means that she has to die, then no contest."

Cheryl looked at Bruce in bewilderment, neither knowing how to respond. They both just instinctively knew that this situation would best be diffused if it were handled discreetly. Dean had just recently come off of his three-day sedation and restraint, and they didn't want to give Walpole any other excuses to pick on him. Cheryl still shuddered when she thought about the electroshock debacle.

"But I can do it, right?" Dean asked, looking up at them hopefully. "I can get along pretty much anywhere. I mean, I never was one for the whole suburbia thing, or school for that matter… but I'm down with the gypsies, tramps and thieves. I could get by…." He swallowed hard. "Here. I could do it. I could do it if it meant that Sam was happy, and living the life he always wanted."

"Dean, why would you think Sam needs you to be here to be happy?" Cheryl asked.

"But you know, I think I'd rather if this were prison," Dean mused. "Because then at least there wouldn't be the meds… or the restraints."

There was a sudden knock on the door and everyone froze, until they heard Greg whispering, "It's me!" They unlocked the door and he poked his head in. Cheryl stood, stifling a groan at the cramping in her legs from having remained in the prolonged crouch for so long.

"We need you out there, Bruce," Greg whispered. "Vincent's pitching a fit."

Bruce looked at Cheryl.

"You go ahead," she said. "I've got my whistle if I need you. Don't worry."

He appeared hesitant at first, but when she pointed at the door and frowned he knew she wouldn't take no for an answer, so he rushed out, Cheryl locking the door behind him.

"Dean, I need you to come back to planet Earth," she said, taking his chin in her hand and gently forcing his gaze in her direction. "We can't stay in this bathroom all day. Eventually one of your doctors or therapists is going to come looking for you."

She snapped her fingers to get his attention.

"Is this body mine?" Dean asked, lost in a daze of emotion.

"What?"

"I don't control it," he said. "When and where I sleep, and eat, and piss… it's all up to somebody else. These guys can drug me and restrain me and torture me and I don't get any say…I'm just this lump of human stuff that gets shuffled around."

"Dean…"

"Have you ever seen a dead body after it's been sitting around for a couple days?" he asked. "It changes… It bloats and swells and, _God the smell_. It transforms from a living person to being just… meat. Rotten meat. As soon as the soul leaves it's just nothing."

"Ok," she began, but he kept on talking.

"So you're constantly rebelling against them, fighting to control that pile of meat that you live in… because without it you're just dead, right? So what am I supposed to do here? Just sit back and, and be… controlled?"

"Because I know I'm not getting out," he went on, looking her in the eye now. "Now that I've finally gotten them to believe me, turns out I can't leave. So I gotta stay here. But that means, what? I'm supposed to just lie down like a dead piece of meat and let them control me?"

"Dean, I don't know what you're talking about," Cheryl said hopelessly. "I wanna help you, but I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you're saying."

Dean laughed.

"Neither do I," he admitted. He held his hands out in front of him, palms facing upward, and stared at them a long moment. "I just know that this… this is all I got left now. Until I bite it, this is me. And I don't want to give it all up yet."

"You don't have to give it up," she assured him, not exactly sure what she was assuring him of.

"You know the criminally insane can't give consent, apparently," he said, cocking the sexiest grin she had ever seen on his face.

"Um… well it depends," she replied, suddenly flustered.

Dean stood, his body close to hers: a little too close. She made a move to back away, but he put a hand on her shoulder.

"I could give you a line but I don't think it'd work on you, and I don't think we have the time," he said, looking through her with those soulful eyes.

She wished she could pretend she didn't understand his meaning, but the hunger in his eyes was clear enough.

"Dean, don't be ridiculous," she said, trying to scoff, but her voice betrayed her with how breathless it sounded.

"It's just comfort," he said, brushing his lips lightly against hers. "I'm not asking for any favours or for anything, really."

"Oh, I think you're asking for something," she said, finding her voice but losing the power to control her legs, which had suddenly turned to jelly.

"Ok, maybe one thing," he admitted with a boyish grin.

His lips were on hers again, but more than a gentle graze this time. She yielded to them, feeling his tongue tease its way into her mouth as his hand ghosted across her jaw.

"Are you saying no?" he breathed, trailing a finger down the length of her neck.

She paused for a moment, considering the gravity of the situation before her. She could lose her job. Dean could get in serious trouble with Dr. Walpole. There were countless moral and ethical issues to be considered. But his lips were so soft, and his body was so firm and hard against her, and by God he was the best looking thing on two legs.

"Hell no," she said, throwing caution to the wind.

They abandoned themselves to the moment, tearing at each others' clothing and exposing to the harsh fluorescent light the tender crevices and swells that are hidden from the everyday. Cheryl allowed herself to take in the sight of his bare chest and abs, which she had thus far deliberately avoided doing in her capacity as nurse and care-giver. She drank in the sight of his chiselled muscles, his pale flesh which was marred here and there by the odd scar. Her hands explored the roughness, the hardness, and the softness of his body, delighting in its rugged perfection even as his hands made their exploratory journey over her contours.

She gasped and felt him smile against her mouth as his hands roved out along the smooth terrain of her flesh, marvelling at how good he was with his hands, how capable of producing the most spine-tingling of sensations with the simplest of touches and gestures. Outside this room he was just a patient, albeit a handsome and sweet and rough though oddly vulnerable patient; but here and now Dean Winchester was transformed. He was confident, brazen almost, yet tender, sensitive. He seemed attuned to every nuance of her body, feeling out every tremor, every held breath, every movement of her body and responding to it in kind, playing her like a finely tuned instrument.

She could feel herself building up almost to a point of climax before the act had even begun, and she burned for its execution. Hungry for him, she threw herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and snaking her fingers through his hair along the back of his head. And then they were one, moving together in a heated frenzy. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, and Dean grunted quietly into her ear – each one trying to be as quiet as possible in spite of the toe-curling pleasure rippling through their bodies in waves. They melded until neither one could bear any more, each one dying in a climactic gasp and then going limp.

And then Dean kissed her, tenderly but deeply on the lips, his eyes meeting hers.

"Thank you," he said simply. "For letting me be me again."

And he heartily meant it. Cheryl had just given him back a small piece of himself in allowing him to be a man again. For now that would have to be enough.


	8. Chapter 8

"So what do we do?" John asked, for what felt like the millionth time as he stared down at the aging hunter. "How do we fix this? How do we get Dean back?"

John had arrived at Bobby Singer's junkyard earlier that morning and had been badgering his host incessantly since his arrival for answers. How do we fix this, he demanded, and how can we set things back to normal? How do we save Dean? He was like a broken record; and no matter how calmly and rationally Bobby and Sam tried to explain that they had to figure out what caused it first, and that they had to actually come up with a plan, John was adamant that something be done immediately.

"I'm not leaving him in there a minute longer!" he raged at no one in particular, pacing back and forth like a man on the edge of insanity.

"Dad, you just need to calm down," Sam cautioned. "We'll figure this out, we just need to keep our heads."

But John wasn't in the mood for _calm down_ or _be cool_. He wanted to act. After years of feeling completely impotent and helpless, unable to help his first-born, he was now ready to explode with the promise of action so close.

"I'm surprised at you Sam," he said, not trying to hide his emotion and mild disgust at his son's calm. "I don't understand how you can be so Mr. Rogers cool about this while your brother is rotting away in some asylum. After everything he did for you while you two were growing up, I would think that you'd care a little bit more than this."

Before he even knew what he was doing, Sam had flown at his father, his fist raised as if to strike him. It was Jessica's frightened yelp of shock that stayed his hand. Father and son stood toe to toe, staring each other down, nostrils flaring.

"Don't!" Sam hissed, his chest heaving. "Don't! You don't get to say crap like that to me after spending a couple decades wallowing in the bottom of a bottle!"

"Yeah?" John retorted. "Well I sobered up, Sam. I sobered up and I took responsibility. But I'm not gonna just sit back and let Dean rot…"

"We'll get Dean out, Dad!" Sam said. "For God's sake, I'm the one that called _you_! We're getting Dean out – right now it's just a matter of how."

"If you two ladies are finished," Bobby said, coughing awkwardly and attempting to give Jessica a reassuring look. "We gotta start working out a plan to bust Dean out."

"Bust him out?" Jessica asked. That didn't sound good. "You mean, we can't just break whatever spell made this happen?"

Bobby shook his head gravely.

"Fact is, we don't know what caused it to know how to undo it. We need Dean." When blank, uncomprehending looks were the only reply he got, he went on. "Well since whatever's happening seems directed at him, chances are he knows who's behind it and can help us figure out how to undo it."

"So we're going to bust him out of a highly secured mental asylum for the criminally insane?" Jessica asked.

"Pretty much."

John Winchester's face broke into a vicious grin.

"When I get my hands on that sonovabitch doctor I'm going to tear him apart," he snarled.

"Yeah, you and me both," Sam added, a venomous hitch to his voice that made his father grin with sudden pride.

"Hey listen, Sammy –" John began, scuffing at a spot on the floor with his boot.

"I know, Dad," Sam replied. "I'm sorry too."

"I just need to get Dean out of there," John said. "When I think about him being in that place… It's like I can't breathe."

"I know. Neither can I."

"So what do we do?" Jessica asked. "How do we…? How do we get Dean out?"

Bobby watched as all three heads turned expectantly to him.

"Well it don't involve rubbin' a magic lamp," he said.

888

Normal. That's how things were starting to feel. He had mostly gotten over the shock of realizing that he would have to stay in this living hell – because no way was he going to let Jessica die for him – and had slipped into a peaceful kind of despondency. He wouldn't call it depression. He was far too manly and tough and hardened to be depressed. It was more like a bone-deep unhappiness. Or, to put it plainly, it sucked. But he could deal. Walpole seemed to have backed off, and the staff were being nicer to him now than they ever had been before, and Dean guessed that his trio of heroes, Cheryl, Greg, and Bruce had something to do with it. His room was still claustrophobically small, the daily meds still made him feel detached and skin-crawly, and that strangling feeling of being both lost and trapped crept up his spine for at least ten full minutes a day… But there were quiet moments when he could just _be_ and even feel somewhat at peace. All in all, he felt he was handling it rather well.

Which he knew, of course, meant that something terrible was about to happen at any moment. So it shouldn't have come as a shock to him when it did. But then, that's what happened when Dean Winchester became complacent. The bottom tended to drop out.

He lay in his bed, thinking about what Sam might be up to, thinking about how crappy this mattress was, wondering what it would be like to still be here at age fifty, when somebody screamed. Dean rose like a zombie from his bed, slowly lifting himself to a sitting position as the hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck stood completely on end. His insides went cold because it was a scream he knew all too well – not the desperate, soul-strangled, deranged cries of lunatics or headcases, but the blood-curdling scream of terror, that primal, animal shriek of death. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He flew out of his bed and ran to the door, trying desperately to see anything beyond his window, but could see nothing and no one. Whoever had screamed, they were not in the hallway beyond his door. Dean listened, straining with his ears, trying to pick out any clues, any words, or pleas, but was met with silence.

And then there were voices, and people were running past his door – running in the direction of that scream, and Dean knew, as they couldn't possibly know, that they were already far too late. Whoever had screamed was taken.

He could hear snatches of conversation, and exclamations of, "Oh God!" but couldn't glean anything from the snippets that he did hear that would let him know what had actually happened. And then the howling started, the crying, the shouting, as Dean's fellow inmates awoke from the disturbance and unleashed their upset in full crazy-babbled glory. He had never so badly wanted to see his fellows sedated. If only he could hear what was going on!

Everything was a wash of confusion as people scurried to and fro down the hall, rushing back and forth, opening doors, sedating hysterical patients, calming others. Dean was tempted to fake a fit just to get someone to come in and talk to him, but he thought with his luck Walpole would show up to offer his own special brand of comfort and decided against it. After what felt like hours the feeling of hysteria and panic eventually subsided, though he could still hear the constant pitter patter of feet going back and forth down the hall. And then he could hear doors opening in succession along the hall, growing louder and closer. Were they doing room checks?

Just then the door clanged and opened, revealing Dr. Walpole, who was flanked by three orderlies, Greg, Bruce, and Mike, and the nurse Suzanne. Their faces were cast in very sombre expressions, and Walpole looked almost euphorically pissed.

"What the hell is going on out there?" Dean asked.

"I might ask you the same question," Walpole intoned dangerously.

"What?"

"There has been an attack," the doctor said coldly. "One of our nurses is dead."

Dean's heart nearly stopped.

"Which one?" he asked, quietly enough that Walpole noticed the sudden hitch in his voice.

"Maria," he said. "She was murdered."

Dean felt his heart begin to beat again. At least it wasn't Cheryl. Then he berated himself for being relieved that someone was else dead.

_Why are they here?_

"So let me guess," Dean said. "You think somehow I did it."

Dr. Walpole raised a questioning eyebrow and Dean smirked.

"Good theory, Einstein – just one little problem. I've been locked in here since 8:30."

"We'll see about that," the doctor replied. "We're going to take some samples scrapings from your fingernails to trace for DNA. Do not test my patience tonight by fighting me on this one. I will make you regret it."

Dean noticed that both Bruce and Greg were shaking their heads emphatically behind Dr. Walpole's back.

"All right there chuckles," Dean said lazily. "Calm down. Nobody's fighting anybody."

He held his hands out and allowed the nurse to take scrapings from under his fingernails.

"So you think one of us somehow busted out of our rooms and killed Maria, huh?" Dean asked. "Would make a lot more sense that it was a staff member…"

"Not necessarily," Walpole said. "Some of our more charismatic patients might have convinced one of the nurses or orderlies to let him out for a few hours…"

Dean laughed.

"Right," he said. "_Excuse me, nurse? Would you mind letting me out of my cell for a couple minutes while I kill someone? Thanks! – you're a peach_. That how it came down?"

"She might have let you out for another reason," Walpole replied.

_Crap, he knows_.

"Really?" Dean said, playing it completely dumb. "Man I wish I was as lucky as you think I am. But hey, if you're willing to look the other way… Suzanne and I could nip out for a quick roll on the table in the staff lounge. Whaddya say, Suzie Q?"

Suzanne's pretty blonde head blushed several shades of red.

"If you've been out of this room, I will find out," Walpole threatened.

"Yeah, bite me."

Dr. Walpole smirked and then left without another word, the four staff members trundling along behind him and sealing Dean alone inside his room once again. He watched through the window as they made their way down the corridor, entering rooms to check more fingernail scrapings.

It was a testament to the mad, insane, completely incomprehensible world that Dean was living in that Dr. Walpole was going door-to-door to collect his own DNA samples without having the proper materials to collect and document anything. If it turned out that a patient had killed Maria, Dean had no doubt that his own name would somehow show up on the label. He thought he must be losing his mind if this was the kind of crack job they were running here. But what the hell – heap on this murder to his list of accomplishments. Dean wasn't going anywhere anyway.

888

It was difficult finding a spare moment to talk with one of his co-conspirators to find out what had happened the night before. Most of the staff members were on edge and they had all been ordered not to discuss the previous night's events with any of the patients. It upset them and made a great many of them hysterical – and some of the ones that didn't become hysterical got excited by it, which meant that med doses needed to be upped to keep their aggressive tendencies in check. Thankfully, some time in the late afternoon, Dean was able to catch Greg in the common room to ask him a few questions.

"Dude, what the hell happened last night?" he whispered.

"Man, it was horrible," Greg replied casually, looking around the room as though scanning it and trying to look as though he was only standing near Dean instead of talking to him. "They found Maria just outside the nurse's lounge. She looked like she'd been attacked by a wild animal. Her throat was all torn open."

"You gotta be kidding me," Dean replied, truly baffled. "What? How?"

"Nobody knows," Greg said. "Walpole thinks it was a patient that got out – went nuts and attacked her."

"Except wouldn't the patient be covered in blood?"

"Good point," Greg admitted. "Anyway, I gotta go."

He quickly stepped away and resumed his patrol of the common room.

So Maria's throat had been torn open. Dean wished he had thought to ask if her heart was missing, in case it was a werewolf attack. He also wished he could ask about the lunar cycle, because in here he had no concept whatsoever what phase of the cycle they were at. He wondered, though, if they would start treating him with kid gloves again if he were to start asking about lunar cycles and missing hearts. It was bound to sound like honey bunches of crazy. But then, if something supernatural had gotten inside, and was walking around the asylum by day in the disguise of an ordinary patient or staffer, something was going to have to be done about it.

In the meantime, Dean had another torturous therapy session scheduled with Dr. Jameson, who was visiting all of the patients today to talk to them about the murder. He just knew that she was going to needle him about it. And true to form, she did not disappoint.

"How are you feeling about what happened last night?' she asked casually, eying him with that cold, scrutinizing, clinical expression that so made him want to slap her.

"I feel like crying," Dean said dryly. "Can I lay my head on your shoulder and be rocked like a baby for a little while?"

"Sarcasm," she noted, scribbling away in her little book.

Dean remained impassive.

"Were you told anything about what happened?" she asked.

Dean shrugged.

"Only that she was killed brutally, and that whoever got her went for her throat."

"M-hmm…" She crossed her legs and leaned forward slightly. "And what do you think did it?"

"Don't you mean who?" Dean said pointedly.

"So you don't think it was a vampire?" she asked, never dropping the clinical, diagnostic cool.

"And why would I think that?" he asked.

"Well there were bite marks all over her neck," she explained, cocking her head to the side to observe his reaction to this news. "And there was significant blood loss – none of which ended up on the floor."

Dean folded his arms across his chest and waited patiently for her to continue. There was no way he was going to give her more ammo to use against him.

"I just thought that you might have put the pieces together," she said.

"There's no such thing as vampires," Dean stated simply. And as far as he knew, that was true. In his hunting experience, vampires were creatures of myth.

"Then how do you explain –?"

"I don't explain," Dean cut her off. "I'm a freakin' patient in a mental hospital, Dr. Jameson. It's not my job to explain how that nurse died."

"But I thought you were a hunter," she prompted. "I thought you hunted all things supernatural."

"Not true," Dean quipped. "Unicorns and fairies are totally safe. Same goes for angels and the Easter Bunny."

"So you don't hunt ghosts and monsters?" Dr. Jameson asked.

Dean heaved a sigh.

"Can we please just cut the crap?" he snapped. "What the hell do you want from me? I thought you were supposed to be helping us all cope and grieve and shit, but it seems all you're doing is trying to goad me into saying something that'll keep me locked up in here even longer."

"I just want you to tell me the truth, Dean," she replied. "I can't help you if you don't tell me the truth."

He laughed hollowly.

"Come on now, Doc. You and I both know you're not trying to help me."

She merely smiled blandly.

888

It was impossible to know if Dr. Jameson had actually been telling the truth when she had said that Maria was covered in bite marks. Dean couldn't imagine why she would lie, since it would merely feed what she believed were his delusions. Bite marks all over her neck… Drained of blood… It did sound like a vampire attack, but he had always been told that vampires didn't exist. He wondered what other creatures were known to be flesh-eating blood-suckers. Sammy would know, _damned walking encyclopaedia of freakishness_.

There was also the pesky question of what in sweet stinking hell he was supposed to do about it if it was something supernatural. With nothing but the clothes on his back and his stunning good looks to recommend him, Dean knew he was like a fish in a barrel, waiting to be shot by the proverbial or supernatural gun. He had no access to weapons, salt, or any kind of relics or rituals that could possibly save him or anyone else in here.

He was going to have to throw caution to the wind and bring someone into his confidence, before things got really ugly. Having spent over twenty years honing his hunting skills and dealing with dangerous, predatory forces, Dean's instincts were keen and usually extremely accurate. The instinct that told him danger was prowling around was in overdrive now, and he knew that soon things were going to get very ugly. He needed to be prepared, and he needed help getting prepared.

"Cheryl," he whispered to his favourite nurse as she walked past his table in the common room. "C'mere for a sec."

She sauntered over and gave him a weak smile. He noticed that her eyes were puffy and red, and realized that she must have been crying over the loss of her friend and fellow nurse.

"I'm sorry about Maria," he said somberly. "You ok?"

She nodded and took a deep, calming breath.

"Give me a few days," she said weakly. "Right now I think I'm still in shock."

"Yeah," Dean replied distractedly, not wanting to waste any more time on un-pleasantries while there was a job to do. "So listen, I gotta ask you something. Are you Catholic?"

She looked down at him quizzically, completely thrown by his question.

"As a matter of fact, I am," she said, frowning. "Why do you ask?"

"Do you have a rosary on you?"

Her eyes narrowed shrewdly.

"I do," she said evasively. "Why do you ask?"

"Can I borrow it?"

"Dean, what're you—"

"I'll give it back," he promised. "I just need it for like a day or two. I promise I'll give it back, and that I won't do anything to it or with it that's worth batting a lash over."

She leaned against the table and sighed sadly.

"Honey, are you ok?" she asked quietly. "Has Maria's death freaked you out a bit? Because it's ok if it did. We're all freaked out by it."

"Freaked out's not really how I'd describe it," Dean admitted wryly. "Look Cheryl, will you lend me the rosary or not?"

"What do you need it for?"

"Protection," he said.

"You want to pray?"

"Sure," he lied. "And maybe bless some things…." _Like that glass of water on the table_.

"You think something evil killed Maria?" she said sadly. "Look Dean, I know it seems that way, and that this is all probably really confusing for you. But whoever killed Maria was just a person. A deranged, sick, mentally unstable person."

Dean was taken aback by her kindly-intended words. Of all people, he thought she would have believed him.

"You still think I'm crazy." It wasn't a question. "I gotta tell you, Cheryl, your own stock on the insano-meter just plummeted."

"Excuse me?"

"Dude, you totally went shag-happy with a guy you think is nuts!" he whispered harshly. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Now she was taken aback.

"I – we – it was just…" She was extremely flustered and couldn't form more of a reply than that.

"Whatever," Dean said, shrugging it off with an irritated sigh. "Your own personal issues aside, I need to know if I can count on you if things get bad in here."

"Dean, honey, you know I'm here for you," she said, recovering from her discomfort.

"That's not what I asked," Dean said. "I need to know if I can count on you to back me up when shit hits the fan. 'Cos it's about to hit and hit hard."

"What are you talking about?" She looked positively bewildered.

"Cheryl," Dean said, and then paused. How in the hell could he explain this to her to make her understand, and to make her believe him?

"I get that you don't believe me," he said at last. "If I hadn't grown up seeing the things that I've seen, knowing the things that I know, I probably never would have believed it myself. But I guess seeing really is believing. And in a few hours I think you're going to get a front-row seat to a real live horror show. No, listen –" she had been about to interrupt. "Something's here. Something killed your friend Maria, and more likely than not it's going to kill again, tonight. And I don't know what it is, or how to fight it, but what I do know is that I'm going to need your help."

She hesitated, watching him with wide eyes and looking about for some kind of escape route, some kind of opening that would let her sneak away from this conversation without committing to anything. But Dean held her gaze with his steely green eyes and refused to let her slink off.

"Dean – I – I don't think I can help you," she said, her cheeks flushing. "I can't believe that… It's just not possible, I'm sorry."

She was backing away. He was losing his chance.

"Just tell me one thing, then," he said. "Did you see Maria's body after they found her?"

She swallowed hard and nodded, visibly haunted by what she had seen.

"And what did you think, how did you feel, when you saw it? Did the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end? Did that feeling in your gut tell you to run and hide before whatever did this to Maria did it to you too?"

He could see the colour draining from her face as she nodded again.

"People are gonna die, Cheryl," Dean said calmly. "When evil finds itself a new home, it doesn't snack on one person and then pack up and move on to the next free meal. And in a place like this, where we're all just locked in here, we've got an all-you-can-eat buffet of helpless, sedated crazy people."

"What do you need me to do?" she asked hesitantly.

It was a start.

888

By the time he was ushered down the hall and back to his room, Cheryl had managed to get some salt for his door and a bottle of water, which Dean blessed and then took with him to his room. At the very least, he had these two staples to use as tests for the thing that he knew was roaming these halls. The rosary was tucked safely in his palm, and he squeezed the beads tight, hoping he wouldn't have to use them. It was a meagre arsenal, but it might help him to figure out what he was dealing with. Salt and holy water worked on a whole host of evil sonsobitches, so it was safe to bet that they might work here as well. He hoped so, anyway. If they didn't work, he was pretty much screwed.

As per their discussion earlier that day, Cheryl waited until lights out and then proceeded to salt the doorway to Dean's room. He knew she was cringing inside at the very idea of humouring this crazy request, but a line of salt was hardly a weapon by anyone's standard, so it was highly unlikely that she would get in trouble for it if anyone asked.

Dean sat up in his bed, refusing to succumb to sleep while a dangerous predator roamed the halls, and listened to the quiet sounds of the world beyond his tiny room. Everything was still. Dean hoped that the thing would come for him tonight, rather than going to attack someone else, so that he could see it and figure out what it was and how to kill it. Of course, all of his plans for attack were based on the assumption that he would survive it, and would come out the winner. Easy as pie, right? Unarmed, drugged, and locked in a tiny room… the many and varied ways that this could go wrong and end up with him dead screamed their warning in his ears, but he pushed them all back. He had hunted evil before and would probably live on to fight it again. Besides, if this thing took him down, at least he would go down fighting, knowing that his brain hadn't come unhinged. He'd rather go down fighting than crumble to a puddle of crazy in this hell hole.

Suddenly the lights to his room sprang to life, blinding him in fluorescent yellow light as the key ground in the lock and the door opened. It had decided to come for him after all.

Dean smiled.


	9. Chapter 9

There was no mistaking the dark gray uniform of the security guard as he eased his way into Dean's room, and the look of surprise on his face to see Dean sitting awake in bed, watching him as he entered, was clearly visible. _Not a demon_, Dean thought, noticing that the man had walked past the salt line without impediment. So what the hell was he, he wondered, but instead asked:

"Who the hell are you?"

"Rodney," the man replied, smiling sheepishly. "I work nights on the second floor."

"Uh-huh. So what brings you to my room at this hour, Rodney? Come to read me a bedtime story?" Dean's hands fumbled with the cap of the bottle of holy water that was safely concealed between his knees. He didn't move an inch from his spot on the bed.

"I'm hungry," Rodney replied, his eyes flashing suddenly ice blue, the pupils shrinking to tiny slits. He opened his mouth in a kind of smiling hiss, and Dean watched in amazement as a second set of teeth, long, sharp fangs-for-teeth, descended from his gums.

"Well I'll be damned," Dean mused. "You really do exist."

The vampire cocked his head to the side and grinned wickedly.

"Just think of me as the tooth fairy."

"Oh, you're a fairy all right, Tinkerbell," Dean quipped. "I'm pretty sure that hairstyle died in the late 80s, but hey, the mushroom cut might make a comeback if you close your eyes and believe real hard."

In a flash the vampire was on him, grasping him by the shoulders and snarling in a rage to tear at his neck, but Dean was ready with the holy water, splashing it up into Rodney's face. He paused in mid hiss and blinked as the water dripped off of his face.

"What the hell?" he sputtered, wiping the water off of his face in surprised irritation. His skin, however, did not boil or hiss or even break out in a sweat.

Dean frowned.

"Crap!" he muttered. "So holy water doesn't work, huh?"

Rodney grinned and resumed his attack, but Dean was ready. He swung his knee with full force into the vampire's groin, trusting that dead or undead, a solid crunch to the jewels would hurt like a sonovabitch. Rodney groaned in pain and fell to the floor, holding his hands over his midsection and panting in rage.

"I'm going to drink you dry," he growled, reaching for Dean has he leapt from the bed and catching him by the ankle.

Dean went tumbling to the floor, landing hard on his shoulder. The vampire's hands grasped at his legs, clawing its way along his body to launch its second neck-biting attack. Dean kicked hard at the thing's face with his bare foot, sending its head rearing back at an odd and unhealthy angle. It howled in pain and craned its neck to the left and then to the right, which emitted strange popping and cracking sounds.

"I like it when they fight back," Rodney taunted, lunging forward before Dean could raise himself enough from the ground to stand and knocking him back to the floor. "It makes the blood pump faster through your veins."

"Gotta make you sing for your supper," Dean grunted, pushing against the vampire with all his might as it attempted to pin him to the ground.

"Well I'm definitely working up an appetite," Rodney said, his pupils dilating with hunger as he eased his way down over Dean's struggling form. Dean could feel the thing's hot breath on his neck and cried out in shock and pain when its teeth suddenly plunged into his flesh.

The knee-jerk reaction was solid and contained the power of adrenaline-spurred desperation, giving it force and strength. For the second time Dean rammed his knee into the vampire's groin, causing him to go momentarily limp as the pain took him down. With monumental effort, Dean swung his palm into Rodney's jaw, knocking him sideways and allowing Dean to wriggle free. Then, remembering the choke-hold that had been used against Sam in the CVA, Dean made a mad grab for the guard's Billy club, grasping it in his hands and swinging it with all his might into the side of Rodney's face.

The vampire fell back, momentarily stunned, and Dean rose to a sitting position and struck again, and again, and again, until Rodney lay still as death.

"Thanks for the dinner invite," Dean said breathlessly. "But I already had plans."

He rose unsteadily to his feet and leaned over the unconscious vampire. It was too much to hope that he had been killed by the beating – undead things usually required more effort than that. Dean swiped Rodney's keys and key card, tore the radio from its setting at his waist, and made his way barefoot out of his room, closing the door behind him, and feeling a wonderful sense of elation at having left it of his own free will.

The temptation to just make a break for it with the keys and card was overwhelming, but Dean knew that he couldn't leave the vampire there to hurt anyone else. These patients were like caged animals in here, helpless against Rodney's attack. And much as Dean wanted to just run away and never look back, he knew that these sad, pathetic lives were in his hands. Besides, he also rationally knew that he wouldn't make it off of this floor, let alone out of the building, dressed as he was. No, there was evil to be fought and he was the only one that could fight it. The only problem was Dean had no idea how.

Holy water and salt obviously did nothing to repel the vampire. That likely meant that crosses and crucifixes were out as well. Wooden stakes, maybe? Decapitation was also a safe bet, since even monsters need heads. Now he just needed to figure out how in the hell he was going to find a wooden stake, or something he could use to decapitate the super-powered undead thing in his room.

There was a kitchen in here somewhere, Dean knew, but he didn't know where. If he could find it he could grab some big-ass cleaver and just hack at the vamp until his head came off. Or he could break into an office and break the legs off of a chair to use as makeshift stakes. But then that plan depended entirely on there being wooden chairs – and in an office the chair would most likely have a metal frame with a swivel seat.

"This seriously sucks out loud," Dean muttered to himself.

The bite mark on his neck was starting to throb a bit, but he pushed the pain back. The vampire hadn't gotten much of a chance to sink in very deeply, and thank God, hadn't taken more than a sip of his blood. Dean suppressed a gag at the thought of his blood being sucked out of him by a chubby dude with a mushroom cut.

"All right Dean," he whispered to himself. "Quit stalling. Time to act."

He turned left down the corridor and swiped the key card through the security pad, smiling in spite of the feeling of trepidation rising in his gut, when it buzzed and then clicked unlocked. He made his way through the door and jogged on swift feet down the corridor until he reached the next door. This one led to the common room.

He held the club tightly in his hands as he made his way into the room, expecting to be ambushed at any moment by a startled guard or orderly. Luckily, the room was empty.

"All right," Dean muttered. "Wood… wood… what the hell in here is made of wood?"

Then he spotted the rickety old rocking chair near the window and felt relieved. It would be a bitch to break apart, but it was blessedly made entirely of wood. He tucked the Billy club into the back of his hospital pants and set his shoulders resolutely. With long, determined strides, he crossed the room and made his way to the chair. Grasping it firmly in both hands, he gave it a hefty swing, crashing it against the floor. It cracked in half in parts but did not come apart entirely, so he swung again.

With each crash the chair splintered more, but the sound was discouragingly loud. Dean knew that within moments there would be guards and orderlies on the scene investigating the noise. This was seriously going to hamper his chances of sneaking back into his room to kill the vamp.

As if on cue he heard the sound of voices down the corridor.

"Crap, shit, and fuck!" Dean hissed under his breath as he vaulted away from the chair and rolled to the floor to crouch behind one of the nearby recliner chairs. He pulled the club out from the back of his pants and gripped it tightly, waiting.

"I heard something coming from in here!" a male voice called. Dean heaved a sigh of relief. It was Greg.

"Holy shit!" another voice answered. Dean thought it sounded like Dwight, one of the evening shift security guards. "What the hell happened to the chair?"

"I don't know," Greg said, his voice growing louder as he made his way toward the wreckage of the rocking chair.

"Ok seriously, what the hell?" Dwight said incredulously. "Nothing like some late-night loony bin vandalism to get your rocks off?"

"Shhh," Greg whispered. "I think whoever did this is probably still in here somewhere."

_And crap, crap, crap_.

There was no sense in hiding, Dean realized. They were going to find him; it was only a matter of when and how. He decided he would rather be standing tall than cowering in a corner.

"Hey," he called casually, having stepped out of his hiding place and standing at full height, the club held tightly in his right hand and resting threateningly on his open left palm.

"Dean," Greg whispered in shock. "What the hell are you doin' out here man? How did you get out of your room?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dean cautioned, watching as Dwight made to reach for the radio at his hip. "Hands away from that or I swear to God I'll break your face!"

Both Greg and Dwight froze.

"Dean, buddy," Greg coaxed. "Whatcha doin'?"

"I just need you both to calm down," Dean said. "Calm down and listen to me."

"We're listening," Greg assured him, his eyes wide.

"There's something here," Dean announced. "A vampire."

He watched as they shared incredulous and sceptical glances, and noticed that they were both inching nervously away from each other, as if to attempt to flank Dean from opposite sides.

"Two against one," Dean noted aloud. "You're kidding yourselves if you think you can take me. I'll drop you both like dirty laundry. Just back the hell off and listen to me."

They froze once more.

"Greg, look at my neck," Dean urged his friend. "Look at my freakin' neck."

Both sets of eyes darted to Dean's injured neck, taking in the sight of the clearly visible teeth marks and the blood that trickled delicately from the wound.

"Tell me how I could do that to myself," Dean said rationally. "I can't bite my own goddamned neck. Right?"

"I don't know," Dwight said, his voice heavy with scepticism. "Did you see what Ed Norton's character did to himself in Fight Club? Man busted his own ass up pretty good."

Dean huffed in irritation.

"Rationalizing," he muttered. "This is good. Because we've got loads of time to stand around yacking. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."

"Dean," Greg said, his voice strained. "Put down the club, man. Put it down and we'll take you back to your room. No one has to know. We'll just go nice and quiet."

"Sorry Greg, but no can do. Any other time and I'd say you're in charge. But now…" Dean's eyes scanned the dark corners of the room, making sure nothing lurked in the places he couldn't see. "Now the rules have changed."

"Dean, come on man," Greg pleaded. "I don't wanna have to fight with you. You're a nice guy, and I feel for you… I really do! But you gotta come with me."

Dean was about to protest when he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching from the corridor Greg and Dwight had just emerged from.

"Everything all right in here?" a female voice called. As she got closer Dean could see that it was a nurse he didn't recognize. She must be one of the regular nightshifters – one of the ones Dean wouldn't see or have access to because he was usually asleep when she was doing her rounds.

"Lesley," Dwight called, his voice cautionary. "Just hold back a sec…"

She paused in mid-step, taking in the sight of Dean, his hands gripping a Billy club menacingly, and the broken rocking chair lying in fragments on the ground.

"Everything ok?" she asked tentatively. "I see one of our patients is out of bed…"

The three staffers exchanged nervous glances.

"Dean here seems to think there's a vampire in the building," Dwight explained calmly.

She arched an eyebrow, taking in the sight of Dean's neck wound with surprised, wide eyes. There was something else there, too, Dean thought.

"That's right," Dean said cautiously, never taking his eyes off of the newcomer. "Your friend Rodney came into my room looking for a midnight snack."

"And you got away?" she asked, possibly humouring him. _Possibly not_.

"I know a trick or two," Dean conceded. She hadn't taken her eyes off of his neck.

"He tried taking a sample off the tray," Dean said conversationally. "Got close, too. Now I can't seem to stop bleeding."

He watched as her pupils dilated.

"Sonovabitch," he muttered. "Greg, Dwight, back away now!"

"What?" they replied in unison, startled and confused.

But they didn't need to wait for an explanation. Lesley's eyes had suddenly changed colour to an icy blue, her pupils shrinking to tiny slits. As Rodney had done, Lesley's mouth opened in a primal hiss, her second set of teeth – her vampire teeth – descending.

She lunged at Dean, growling in rage at his taunting, flaunting neck wound, but Dean was ready with the Billy club, striking her hard in the face and sending her reeling backwards. He didn't wait for her to strike again, but struck out with his own attack of heavy blows with the club. He swung with every ounce of strength that he had, knowing that his life and the lives of the two men standing before him depended on it.

With each blow the vampire Lesley took a step back, staggering with dizziness and pain. Then she dodged and with lightening fast reflexes caught the club with her right hand.

"That wasn't very nice," she said coldly, smiling viciously. "Not nice at all."

Dean jabbed her in the throat with his left hand, making her gag, but she parried by yanking hard on the club, jerking Dean toward her. Using the momentum of his stumble, Dean head-butted her hard, sending her tumbling several steps back.

"Go!" Dean shouted at the two men who stood watching, mouths agape in shock and horror at the bizarre battle that had erupted before them. "RUN!"

There was a palpable beat change at Dean's words. Lesley suddenly diverted her attention to Dwight and Greg, who were standing like a couple of punch-drunk idiots, watching in slack-jawed wonder as their colleague's predatory gaze glided icily over them. She smiled and then without warning lunged at Greg, who screamed and fell back as she grappled with him, taking him down effortlessly with her preternatural strength.

Dean spun and dove for the shattered rocking chair, grabbing a large splintered shard of wood in his right hand as he tucked the Billy club back into the back of his pants and then sprinting toward his terrified and screaming friend. He came upon the vampire from behind, plunging the stake through her back, right through her heart, until it protruded through her chest.

She gasped in shock and in pain, staggering away from Greg on the floor, who promptly skittered away, visibly shaken but thankfully unharmed.

"Well that was rude," Lesley huffed, irritated, turning to look at Dean with a look of long suffering. "I was in the middle of my dinner when you went ahead and jabbed this thing right through my back. Which, by the way, cowardly?"

Dean smirked.

"As cowardly as nipping off people who are locked in their cells like caged animals?" he countered. He hoped his disappointment that she hadn't combusted, turned to dust, or a festering pile of goo wasn't visible from his face.

"Stakes through the heart don't cut it, sweetheart," she said with mock sweetness. "It takes a lot more to kill something like me."

"Well lucky me," Dean said, quirking a grin. "I've got _nothing_ better to do with my time."

"I can think of something better," she replied, baring her teeth once more.

"Sorry sweetheart. Visiting the Grand Canyon's on my list of things to do way before getting eaten by an undead skank. I'll add it to the list if that trip to Disney World doesn't pan out, though. I promise."

And then they were sparring once again. The trick was not allowing her to get close enough to get her hands on him, which Dean was certain would spell doom. He struck with the club, mostly, cracking her hard in the face and sending her back a pace or two with each hit, but occasionally he had to resort to sharp elbow strikes and leg sweeps. He had never missed his boots as much as he did at this moment, feeling with each kick how much more power and impact the blows would have if his feet were booted, rather than bare.

"I still don't see you running," Dean growled at Dwight and Greg, who were hedging nervously on their feet, at an obvious loss for what to do.

It was the opening Lesley needed. She jabbed with her right hand, catching Dean in the gut and knocking the wind out of him, and then grasped him by the shoulders and lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing. He felt himself become weightless as his body was hefted off of the ground, and then the air was whizzing past in a blur as he was tossed like a rag doll. He landed with a crash of blinding pain, his head coming into contact with something solid, and then darkness overtook him.

888

Someone was screaming. Dean opened his eyes, blinking in confusion at the horrific sound coming from somewhere to his left. Someone was screaming, and then there was a gurgling, a gasp, and then nothing. Not good. _Not good not good not good_.

He staggered to his feet, the world coming back to him in a haze of fluorescent light as his eyes began to regain focus. The vampire was crouched over a limp form on the floor – Dean couldn't tell whose limp form – and she appeared to be feeding uninhibited from the prone figure.

The club was gone. It had fallen out of his grip when he fell, but he was glad to see that it hadn't fallen far from where he landed. He scooped it up and sprinted toward Lesley, filling himself with rage to fuel his struggling limbs with desperately needed energy. This bitch had to die.

The vampire sat up, raising her head in exultation at the feast beneath her just as Dean came up on her from behind, leaping into the air and landing, full-bodied, on top of her, his knees crashing onto her back and sending her sprawling onto her front on the ground. Dean felt something crack in her ribcage as his full weight collided with her back as they collided with the floor. The impact alone would have killed an ordinary human being, but the vampire was merely momentarily dazed, though gasping and snarling in pain. But Dean didn't waste a single moment: he swung the club into the back of her head, again, and again, and again, and unendingly, relentlessly, until his shoulder throbbed, until his muscles quivered with fatigue, and until he realized that the vampire was unconscious.

"That…" he panted, "is how… it's done."

He fell back on his ass and breathed deeply for a long moment, trying to catch his breath so he could come up with the next plan. Now he had two unconscious vampires and he needed to find a way to kill them. Stakes didn't work. Holy water and crosses didn't work. Salt didn't repel them. And they were indoors, so even if sunlight did have an adverse effect on them, there was no chance he'd be able to expose them to that weakness in here, at night, with so few windows that sunlight would be avoidable even if he managed to live through the night.

Dwight was dead. Lesley had bitten him several times and then had torn apart his throat, ripping through his jugular. The poor guard's cold, blank eyes stared up at nothing, his face a freakish white mask of death speckled with droplets of red.

Greg had fared better. Dean found him lying in a heap under an overturned table. He hadn't been bitten, but the fall had obviously knocked him out cold.

"Greg," Dean called, shaking him by the shoulder. "Come on, dude. Greg!"

The heap moaned and stirred.

"Greg," Dean called again. "Hey, there pal. How're you feelin'?"

"Dean?" Greg mumbled, rolling up from the ground and falling up into a sitting position. "Dean… what happened…?"

"You got your ass handed to you by a chick," Dean teased, grabbing the orderly by the hands and hauling him to his feet.

"She was a vampire," Greg muttered to himself. "Holy shit, Dean. She was a vampire!"

Dean smiled broadly, trying not to be smug and stifling the million I-told-you-sos that he was itching to dish out.

"I can't believe it…" Greg went on. "You weren't crazy… these things… these monsters… they're real?"

Dean nodded.

"And you hunt them!" Greg explained. "The way you went after that thing, like it was your mission in life, like… like how a surgeon goes for the scalpel or a pilot grips the control stick… you were just… in the zone, man!"

"Glad we're on the same page," Dean said dryly. "Ok, let's go. We need supplies and we need 'em fast."

"Supplies?"

"Yeah. I just had an idea, and I need you to get me some empty syringes. As many as you can. And as quickly as you can."

"Syringes?" Greg sounded panicked.

"Just do it man," Dean ordered. "I don't have time to argue with you. Run and get some syringes and haul ass back here as fast as you can. Now. GO!"

Greg was running from the word go. It was obvious from the trembling in his hands that he was in shock. He hadn't even bothered to check and see how Dwight was doing, which for the time being was a good thing. Dean needed Greg's help and he highly doubted that Greg would be able to keep it together if he saw the state of his friend.

With that in mind, Dean worked on dragging Dwight's corpse to the far corner of the room, hoping to keep him from view for as long as possible. It would be easier to get things done without the dead body acting as a horrific, constant reminder of the danger they were in. Besides, anyone could stumble in and see it, which would spell disaster. He didn't want to think about what would happen if the vampire woke up before Greg returned. Luckily, he didn't have to.

"I'm back!" Greg announced breathlessly, his hands and pockets full of plastic packets of syringes. "I grabbed about twenty. Do you think that'll be enough?"

"Twenty's perfect," Dean assured him.

"Hey where's Dwight?" Greg asked. "Did he get out?"

Dean cringed and watched as Greg's eyes fell to the blood stain on the floor.

"Oh God," Greg whispered. "She got him, didn't she?"

Dean nodded.

"And he's dead?"

"Yeah," Dean admitted sadly. "I'm sorry, man. If I'd woken up sooner…"

But Greg held out a hand to silence him.

"No," he said, swallowing hard. "You did everything you could. Christ, you were fighting like a lion while we just stood there and watched… I guess I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. I didn't want to believe. And now Dwight's dead."

Dean didn't have a reply. Placating people with comforting words about the dead being in a better place, or going peacefully, or about everything happening for a reason, was Sam's specialty. Instead, Dean coughed uncomfortably and grabbed a syringe packet, tearing it open with his teeth.

"Which is why we're going to kill this sucker," Dean assured him. He marched to Dwight's body in the corner and bent low.

"What are you doing?" Greg asked, his voice pitching higher in concern.

"Just checking something," Dean said calmly. "If this doesn't work we're royally screwed. Like just-dropped-the-soap-in-the-prison-shower screwed."

That ominous declaration was enough to silence whatever questions or protests Greg had been about to launch.

"Do you have access to the kitchen?" Dean asked.

"No," Greg admitted. "Why?"

"Damnit!" Dean hissed. "We need to get in there. I need a knife or something."

"I can get us to the kitchen, but I can't get us inside it. It's padlocked."

Dean smirked.

"Well that I can take care of myself," he said confidently. "You just get me there and I'll do the rest."

"Can you kill it? The vampire?" Greg asked.

Dean shrugged.

"We're about to find out."

Lesley was stirring.


	10. Chapter 10

I just want to send out a big heaping thank you to everyone for their reviews! It's so encouraging to know that people are on board with me, and I do hope to have this thing finished eventually. I hope you continue to enjoy it as the story progresses!

888

Dean sat on top of the table, his legs crossed Indian-style, and watched as the vampire stirred. It was a gamble, but he had to know. Incapacitating the vampires was priority one, because he'd have to go to the kitchen in person to find a weapon large and sharp enough to cut the fugly's head off, and right now it was just damned impossible to do that without some kind of insurance. He had to know.

"Oh," Lesley groaned. "This is worse than a hang-over…" She lifted her head groggily, shaking away the confusion, and her bleary eyes eventually settled on Dean.

"Now that's a pleasant surprise," she said, getting unsteadily to her feet and glowering at Dean with her ice-blue eyes. "I was hoping you'd still be around so I can tear the flesh right off that handsome face of yours."

"That threat gets scarier every time I hear it," Dean quipped. His hand was gripping the syringe tightly.

"This won't be quick," she warned, stalking towards him with renewed rage. From the venom in her gaze, Dean knew that she meant business. If this didn't work he was going to die painfully and slowly. She would make sure of that.

"Say a prayer to your dear Lord," she said with a hiss, her teeth descending once again as she grasped Dean by the shoulders and leaned in to chomp down onto his already injured neck.

And that's when Dean made his move. In one swift motion the syringe was up, jabbed into her chest, the plunger pushing its contents into her undead bloodstream. She paused for a moment, looking at the syringe with a smirk and a frown.

"Drugs don't work on vampires you id—" but then she froze, her eyes going wide at the red tainting the empty syringe. "Dead man's blood…" she murmured, stumbling back. And then she fell to the floor.

Dean rose slowly from the table, staring down at the semi-conscious vampire as she struggled against the blood that was coursing through her body like poison. And then he let out an explosive breath and whooped with joy.

"Thank you Anne Rice!" he shouted to no one in particular.

It had worked. His plan had worked. He vowed he would never again allow Sam to make fun of him for his extensive knowledge of movie trivia – "Interview With the Vampire" had just saved his life. He wasted no time in rushing over to Dwight's corpse to fill the remaining syringes with his dead blood.

"Sorry, man," Dean whispered to him. "I promise, you won't have died for nothing. Kay?"

"Dean!" Greg called from the corridor. "Come help me with the door, would ya?"

Dean jogged through the common room and made his way down the hall to the door, where he found Greg struggling to push a gurney through the door as it attempted to close on him. They worked together to wheel it through and swung it toward the unconscious vampire.

"Did it work?" Greg asked.

Dean beamed.

"Hell yeah!" he said with enthusiasm. "Took her down like a shot of that garbage you guys keep pumping into us."

Greg laughed awkwardly, casting Dean a guilty look before bending to help lift Lesley onto the gurney. They plopped her unceremoniously onto the bed and strapped her arms and legs tightly in the restraints, leaving no room for her to wriggle free. Then Dean handed him several syringes full of Dwight's blood.

"Put those in your pocket or something," Dean suggested. "Somewhere people can't easily see them if we're spotted."

"Right."

"So ok, we need help. Did Cheryl head home for the night?" Dean asked.

"I don't think so. She took on an extra shift because she was worried that something would happen…" Greg smiled awkwardly. "I think she was worried about you."

Dean tried not to blush.

"Heart-warming," he said dryly. "All right, then. Call her. We need her help for this one. It's kind of a three-person job."

"Right." Greg hauled out a cell phone from his pants pocket and dialled a number. "Hey, Suzanne. Is Cheryl around?"

Dean raised a questioning eyebrow and Greg mouthed 'nurses' lounge' by way of explanation. Dean nodded his understanding.

"Hey, Cheryl. It's Greg. Listen, I need your help with something. Can you come and meet me in the common room? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's just that…" he bit his lip in thought, bracing himself to be casual. "No, Dwight had an accident. NO NO! Just come alone. It's kind of private, is all. Yeah, I'm sure. He's sure. Just, hurry, kay? Thanks, Cheryl."

He hung up and swallowed hard, struggling to stem the tide of his emotions.

"She's gonna rush in here hoping to help Dwight," he said thickly.

"I know," Dean whispered back. "You did good, though."

They waited only a few minutes before Cheryl came running quietly onto the scene, her face set with worry. She skidded to a halt when she saw Dean standing next to Greg, and her eyes went wide in complete bewilderment at the sight of Lesley strapped to a gurney.

"What the hell…?"

"Hey," Greg said soothingly. "Um… something's happened…"

"Dean, honey, what did you do?" Cheryl asked.

Dean stepped back, deciding to let Greg handle the situation. She would listen to Greg.

"Cheryl," Greg said. "There's something wrong with Lesley. She… she went crazy and attacked us."

"Attacked you?" she asked, dumbfounded, confused, and visibly frightened. Her hands had begun to shake. "Where's Dwight?"

Greg looked hesitantly at Dean, who nodded for him to continue.

"Cheryl, Dwight is dead," he said quietly. "Lesley killed him."

Cheryl's hand rose to her chest, as if to clutch it to prevent it from exploding.

"What?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "How?"

"It was… it was like with Maria…"

She was backing away.

"Hold on a sec," Dean said, taking a step toward her.

"What the hell is he doing out of his room, Greg?" she asked, her face draining of colour. Dean could see that a hoard of fears were washing over her, including having let her guard down with a patient who, on paper at least, was criminally insane and extremely dangerous.

"Cheryl, listen to me," Dean coaxed. "I'm not the bad guy – I swear to you, I'm not the bad guy."

But she was still backing away.

"What. Happened?" She looked to be a hair's breath away from screaming bloody murder.

"Lesley is a vampire," Greg supplied. "I know it sounds crazy, but I saw it with my own eyes, Cheryl."

Her wild eyes flicked between Dean and Greg.

"Dwight and I came out here because we heard a crash, only to find Dean waiting for us with a Billy club. He was saying that Rodney – one of the nightshifters from the second floor – had snuck into his room and attacked him."

"Which was true," Dean added. "I overpowered him and I escaped. He's still in there, by the way. We're going to have to deal with that before we go to the kitchen."

"And Dwight and I of course didn't believe him. But he had the bite marks on his neck to prove where he'd been bitten."

"Right!" Dean exclaimed, remembering his injury and tilting his head so that Cheryl could see the angry red puncture marks on his neck. "See?"

"Anyway," Greg went on. "That's when Lesley showed up. At first we thought she was coming to help us, but she took one look at the blood on Dean's neck and…" His voice dipped into a low whisper. "Christ, Cheryl, I've never seen anything like it. She changed – her teeth went all funny and she hissed like some kind of wild animal and then she attacked us. She killed Dwight."

Cheryl's chest was heaving. She appeared as though she was going to hyperventilate.

"It's ok, Cheryl," Dean said gently. "I know you're scared. This is some seriously freaky shit, and unless you've seen it first-hand it just seems like all kinds of crazy. But I know what I'm talking about here. And deep down I know you do too."

She watched Dean sceptically, weighing his words, but was still obviously hesitant, resisting the truth. Dean couldn't really blame her. The truth sounded more like fiction, and believing right now would require a major leap of faith.

"You laid out that salt line in front of my door for a reason," Dean went on. "But since seeing is believing…"

He took an empty syringe from the table, tore it out of its packaging, and plunged it into his own arm with a hiss.

"What are you d—" Cheryl began, but Dean cut her off with a wave of his hand as he drew back the plunger, filling the syringe with his blood.

He then leaned over Lesley's prone and seemingly unconscious form and gave her a not-so-gentle rap on the cheek.

"Hey!" he called. "Sleeping Bitch! I've got a midnight snack for ya."

He waited until her eyes opened, settling on him with a death-like glare. For the moment they were her natural brown, but Dean knew that would change. He was counting on it.

Holding the syringe over her head, he gently pushed on the plunger, allowing several fat drops to tumble from the needle, where they landed on Lesley's pale lips. Her eyes flickered with rage and bloodlust, but she tried to resist, not wanting to blow her cover in front of Cheryl – who she hoped would help to release her from her binds. Dean pressed harder on the plunger, sending several more drops tumbling onto her lips.

He smirked as her nostrils flared, her breaths laboured, as she struggled to resist. Losing patience, Dean pushed the plunger completely to, sending the entire contents squirting onto Lesley's lips. Blood seeped into her mouth and her eyes rolled back in her head in ecstasy. And then in a flash she was lost to the hunger. She moaned longingly and then hissed with rage, her second set of teeth – her vampire teeth – descended once again even as her eyes returned to the icy blue hue, the pupils reduced to tiny slits once more.

"Well hello there," Dean said with feigned warmth. "For a minute there I thought you weren't going to show."

"You just made a big mistake, hunter," Lesley said, laughing dangerously. "You've given me a taste for your blood. Now I'm gonna suck you dry. Just as soon as the others come for me."

"Huh…" Dean shrugged, unimpressed. "I wonder how good your suction will be when I cut your head off. Well I guess we'll see."

He turned to face Cheryl, his arms folded across his chest, his face set in a handsome yet patronizing smirk.

"Do the words _I told you so_ even begin to cover how much _I freakin' told you so!_"

At first he thought she was going to faint; what little colour left in her cheeks leeched out. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, and she laid a tentative hand on a nearby table to steady herself. Forcing a deep breath, she stood upright and looked Dean straight in the eye.

"So this is what you do?" she asked soberly. "You really do hunt down monsters and save people?"

Dean grinned, his eyebrows waggling mischievously.

"Yup," he said simply. "I'm a freakin' hero, Cheryl."

She appraised him for a long moment, looking him up and down, tilting her head to the side as if studying a piece of abstract art. Then her eyes widened and she swallowed hard – realizing in that instant that she was seeing the real Dean Winchester for the first time. And for one hysterical moment it crossed her mind that he was even better looking when his face was set in a confident smile, his eyes gleaming with lethal intent. He oozed raw power and strength, all semblance of the frightened, trembling boy she'd known for the last two months gone. She realized that the man standing before her now, his intense green eyes locking onto hers, revealing their truths with a single, penetrating look, was the same bold lover who had taken her into his arms and made love to her with blazing fire and passion, making her feel seventeen again. This was Dean Winchester.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked.

888

"Are you sure this is a good plan?" Greg asked in a hushed whisper. "Lesley said there were others – what if one of them attacks us?"

"You've got the syringe," Dean assured him with a wink. "Besides, the restraints are loose enough for me to get untied quickly if I have to. We just need this cover."

Cheryl and Greg tried to appear nonchalant as they wheeled the gurney with Dean lying atop it down the corridor toward his room. Neither of them had been particularly keen on strapping their protector down in the restraints, but Dean had insisted that the cover was necessary in case they were discovered by any of the other staff. While acknowledging that it was a sound plan, neither one was very happy about it.

They traversed the familiar corridors, swipe their key cards through the key slots, doors opening with a buzz and then a clang of metal, wheels squeaking plaintively in the eerie silence of the night as the madhouse slumbered. At last they reached Dean's room and paused.

"Kay, lemme up," Dean whispered.

They immediately untied him and he rolled off of the bed, coming to his feet swiftly and peeking through the tiny window to see the angry vampire, Rodney, pacing around inside.

"Man he looks pissed," Dean said musingly. Then he turned to his two comrades and gave them a confident if slightly bracing smile. "Ok, shut the door behind me and lock it. Don't come in until I've taken the sonovabitch down, you got me?"

"What?" Cheryl hissed. "Are you crazy?"

"No way, man!" Greg agreed. "We're not lockin' you in there with a monster!"

"Yes. You are." He folded his arms across his chest and gave them a puckered-lipped glare. "I can't fight that thing if I'm worrying about you two getting in the way. Just stay out here until the coast is clear. And if you get in my way, so help me God I will kick both your asses."

They nodded solemnly and watched with bated breath as Dean made his way inside the room.

"Hey!" he called, his voice ringing with challenge.

Rodney turned his mushroom-cut-haired head in Dean's direction, his lip curling up in a snarl and a smile of pleasure.

"Boy, you gotta be the stupidest crazy fuck I've ever seen," he said, his shoulders squared and his chest heaving with unbridled blood lust.

Dean shrugged.

"My brother's the smart one," he quipped.

"And now you're lunch," Rodney snarled, lunching at the young hunter.

And missed.

Dean sidestepped effortlessly and plunged the syringe that was neatly concealed in his palm into the vampire's back as he blundered past, pushing the plunger in hard and fast but failing to move away from the flailing limbs as the creature made its graceless decent to the floor. They fell in a crash of limbs, Dean landing on top of the vampire, who wrapped his arms tightly around Dean's chest, effectively pinning him in place.

Dean turned to look up at the sound of Cheryl's strangled yelp through the window, giving her a reassuring though pained smile and nod as he felt the vampire shudder. The arms around him trembled and then fell as Rodney groaned, the blood sickness sapping him of his preternatural strength and leaving him moaning in lethargic sickness on the floor.

Dean rolled to his side and pulled himself up to his feet, grinning like a schoolboy after his first kiss. He gave his two co-conspirators the thumbs up and they promptly unlocked the door.

Within minutes the empty gurney was filled with Rodney's prone and restrained form. Lesley was then wheeled in, Greg having gone to fetch her, as ordered, and the two poisoned vampires were left locked, and restrained in Dean's room. Greg had also procured yet another gurney, which Dean once again laid himself out on, allowing his friends to loosely restrain him for the sake of subterfuge.

"This is the coolest and scariest thing I have ever done," Greg confessed as they wheeled Dean down yet another corridor on their way to the kitchen. "Hey, so do you have superpowers?"

Dean snorted a laugh. "Hell, no. I'm just a regular guy."

"But you fight like… like…"

"Like Batman," Dean suggested eagerly, his head stretching away from the gurney as he looked up. "Except without the gadgets, or the armour. Ok, so I'm actually way tougher and cooler than Batman."

"Plus, you probably don't have a Batmobile," Cheryl added.

"Oh baby, my car is so much cooler than any Batmobile," Dean confided, his grin positively lighting up his face. "'67 Chevy Impala. Sleek and black." He pursed his lips together as if to whistle.

"I tell you what," he said. "If we make it out of this alive, and if I ever get out of here, I'll take you for a spin." He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

Cheryl blushed furiously and averted her gaze.

"Dude, are you off your meds?" Greg whispered in stunned disbelief.

"What?" Cheryl and Dean asked in unison.

"Are you off your meds?" Greg repeated, slapping his card through the nearest swipe station and pushing the door open.

"I thought we agreed I wasn't crazy," Dean replied.

Greg shook his head.

"No, that's not what I mean," he said. "You're acting super normal – like you're not dopey or confused or sluggish or drooling."

"Thanks," Dean said dryly.

"And the way you were fighting earlier," Greg went on, "you've got way more energy and body control for someone who's on the dosages you're _supposed_ to be on."

Dean didn't have an answer for that and looked to Cheryl and then back to Greg to see if either of them had any ideas as to why he seemed more lucid of late. Cheryl's gaze seemed determinedly fixed on the floor.

"Cheryl," Greg intoned questioningly.

She shrugged.

"Ok fine," she said, huffing. "I started lowering his meds after his last restrainment."

"Are you kiddin' me?" Dean demanded, shock and delight playing out on his handsome features.

She shook her head and shrugged again.

"I don't know," she admitted. "It was like a little voice in my head told me to do it. I had always thought that the dosages we had you on were too high, Dean," she added. "I tried convincing Dr. Walpole to lower them."

Dean was moved and touched beyond words. He had never known anyone to put themselves on the line for him, to risk their career to save him. The fact that she had done it when he was at his lowest and needed it most when she had no reason to believe he was anything other than a crazed patient was almost too much. It threatened to make him emotional and weepy and chick-flicky, so he decided to look away. Look at anything other than her and Greg, because they were both staring down at him as if waiting to see his reaction.

"So Dean has basically been off his meds for the last week?" Greg asked, seeking clarification.

Cheryl nodded.

"Cheryl," Dean said, finding his voice at last. "You are so seriously awesome."

And he was grinning at her again, a boyish cocksure smile on his face that was somehow brighter than the sun.


	11. Chapter 11

**This chapter is a little racier, but not so racy that it warrants a change in rating. You've been warned: it's sexy and dangerous and filled with angst. But I promise there's a light at the end of the tunnel.... _eventually_.**

888

They only ran into one orderly on their way to the kitchen, and Cheryl's quick-thinking had them sailing past the burly man with ease, the man having swallowed her explanation for why they were wheeling a restrained patient down that particular corridor at such a late hour hook line and sinker. She had merely thrown out the name Walpole, with a vague reference to a new experimental treatment, and the orderly had immediately stepped off, waving them past him without a second glance. Apparently the good doctor was left entirely to his own devices with his choice of medical treatment for his patients. Dean was so thoroughly looking forward to kicking his ass if he ever got the chance.

Removing the padlock from outside the cafeteria, which housed the kitchen in the back, was more of a challenge. Without his regular tools, Dean had been forced to struggle with the lock for a good ten minutes before the damned thing finally snapped open, and it had taken more than a paperclip or a hairpin. What he wouldn't have given for his trusty lock-pick…

With the giant, monster-movie sized cleaver stashed safely away under the flimsy mattress of the gurney, they made their way carefully back to Dean's room. The vampires were stirring, the blood poisoning obviously leeching away. Dean felt they had made it back just in time – any longer and they probably would have broken free of their restraints.

"Ok," Dean said, getting up from his prone position on the gurney and peeking through the window once more for good measure. "You two wait out here while I, uh… Well, just wait out here."

"So you're going to… cut their heads off?" Greg asked with a wince.

"Yah," Dean said, breathing heavily. "Pretty much. I figure if stakes don't work, then decapitating them should. If they're still up and kicking after I go full-on Headless Horseman on them, I'll _let_ them eat me."

"Should we… do you need any help?" Cheryl asked, grimacing at the very idea.

Dean patted her shoulder reassuringly.

"You just watch my back, ok?" he said. "And uh, you might want to look away or something. Whatever's gonna happen in there, it ain't gonna be pretty."

The two staffers nodded solemnly and lowered their heads as Dean eased his way into his room. Neither one dared to look inside to see what was happening through the tiny window.

Dean approached slowly, his fists clenched tightly around the heavy steel kitchen utensil. He could see the groggy vampires stirring in their restraints, uttering angry curses through ghostly pale lips. He swallowed hard. This would be his first decapitation.

It was messier, bloodier, and stickier than he had imagined, and without the swift, fluid ease of a well-sharpened machete, which would have been his weapon of choice, the whole process of severing human heads from human bodies, even if they were demonic, vampiric human heads from demonic, vampiric human bodies, was an exercise in _grossness_. He gagged through their screams as he hacked into Rodney's neck, and then into Lindsey's, turning his chin up high to avoid the blood spatter getting in his mouth or eyes. He could almost taste the coppery blood as it hung thick and sickeningly sweet in the air. Splashes of red danced in angry sprays, like strokes of modern abstract art painted over his face and arms and the white of his cotton T-shirt. He took several long, deep breaths through his nose to keep from throwing up. It was a struggle, but after a few moments of deep breathing through nostrils flared white, he finally managed to get his roiling stomach and over-active gag reflex under control.

At the sound of his gentle rap on the door, Greg peeked through the window and saw his blood-spattered accomplice. Gasping in shock, his trembling hands fumbled with the keys to let him out. Cheryl and Greg both stood staring at him for a full minute in wide-eyed horror at the sight of him. Dean Winchester was a perfect picture of slasher film gore. He looked like an axe murderer.

"Ok, so I'm thinking we should burn them," Dean said in a conversational whisper. "Anyone got some kind of accelerant, like lighter fluid or a can of hairspray or somethin'?"

"Burn them?" Greg asked. "Are you nuts? It'll set off the fire alarms and the sprinklers."

"Crap!" Dean muttered, worrying his bottom lip in thought. "Well we gotta do somethin'. We can't just leave the bodies there like that for someone to find."

But then, they couldn't very well leave charred corpses for them to find either. His brow drew down in a deep scowl, a heavy stone sinking into his stomach and landing with a resounding plunk as the bottom officially dropped out. Just when he thought things couldn't possibly get any worse….

"Sonovabitch!" Dean hissed tiredly. He ran his hands frustratedly through his sandy blonde hair, which had recently been re-cropped, probably while he was out of it last week.

"What?" Cheryl asked. "What is it?" Her eyes darted left down the corridor, then right, searching for some oncoming attacker.

"Oh God, I am so freakin' screwed," Dean said with a sigh. He took a moment to wallow in the fear and dread, trying to steady his breath enough to pull himself back up again. He had a job to do, after all. There were probably other vampires still roaming these halls.

"Whaddyou mean?" Cheryl asked. Dean stole a quick glance in her direction and saw that her eyes were wide with concern and sympathy. The implication of what he had done obviously hadn't hit her yet.

But Greg's pale face and sad attempt at a bracing smile said it all.

"The bodies," Greg whispered. "They're all going to think that you…?"

"Yah," Dean said on an inhaled breath, his brows raised meaningfully. "If I thought I was in it before… _Man!_"

"Dean, they'll take you to the basement," Greg said urgently, almost pleading.

"The freakin' dungeon?" Dean asked. He had heard whispers about the basement, more affectionately known as the dungeon – the place where the country's most violent and deranged criminals were dumped and left to rot – but had hoped that the stories weren't true. The Hannibal Lectors and Leatherfaces of this world, it was rumoured, wound up in the basement. By the pale and terror-stricken look on Greg's face, Dean now had confirmation that the stories were true.

"I've heard it's hell down there," Greg whispered. "Bruce got stuck doing a week down there when two of the regular orderlies got killed trying to restrain a patient."

"Well thanks for that," Dean snapped. "I can let that haunt me while I hunt down the last skank-ass vampire and put it out of its misery."

He stalked angrily down the empty corridor in search of his prey, not bothering to wait for his comrades to catch up as they followed him.

888

It was the sound of hushed voices that led them toward the common room. Several voices, jabbering at once, confused, tired, and frightened. Dean paused at the door, Cheryl and Greg standing so close to him he could feel their breath heating him from the front and from behind, as he pressed his ear against the door and listened. Vincent was moaning about his schedule being disrupted, his voice standing out the loudest amongst the general babble in the room. There were more patients out of bed than just Dean, it appeared.

"What the hell?" Greg asked in a harsh whisper.

Cheryl shook her head, giving Dean a questioning look.

"Crap!" Dean growled. "I'm thinking either buffet time, or human shields. Either way, this sucks out loud!"

"What are we going to do?" Cheryl whispered.

"I'm going to kill whatever monsters are left," Dean said pointedly, "and you two are going to get everyone else to safety."

He gave them both a steely jade glare that brooked no argument.

"You both still got your syringes?"

They nodded yes.

"Good, let's go."

The buzzing of the door as the swiped key card gained them access to the common room on the other side announced their arrival. Dean strode forward with a confident, bandy-legged swagger that was only slightly diminished by the bare feet and hospital pants. He could see six patients milling about the room aimlessly, looking lost and confused, frightened and alone as they found themselves in a place they knew they shouldn't be at such a late hour. They were crazy but they weren't stupid. There was a dead body on the floor, the torn remnants of an elderly man whose delusions had landed him in this asylum for what was probably the better part of his adult life. His cold dead eyes stared blankly up at Dean, accusing him of the failure he knew rested solely on his shoulders. He had come too late.

"Dean!" Suzanne called from a chair in the lounge, her small frame hidden behind Vincent's chubby bulk as he shuffled listlessly in front of her.

And Dean's heart sank.

"Not you Suzie Q?" he asked sadly.

She stood up and smiled, a smile so cold it stopped his blood.

"I went on vacation last week," she said conversationally, strolling between the tables and trailing a finger absently along the cold, hard surfaces of the tabletops as she passed them. "And the strangest thing happened to me."

"Lemme guess," Dean supplied, gulping. He really didn't want to have to kill poor little Suzie Q. "You met some undead thing and got turned?"

"Something like that," she said with a grin.

"It was scary at first," she admitted. "When I awoke to my new family, I was kind of freaked. But once I got used to it it was much better. It was like it took me dying to really come alive. I was ready to leave it all behind. But then they told me what a great opportunity I had right here. I mean, all these people just locked away, like picking grapes off the vine at the produce section of your local grocery store. Just too easy."

"You used to be so sweet," Dean said regretfully.

"I used to be alive," she added archly.

"So you killed Maria?" he asked. "And then you turned Lesley and Randy?"

She nodded.

"I figured it would be easier if I had some family on the inside."

Dean's eyes darkened and he quirked his trademark cocksure grin.

"Hate to break it to you," he gloated, "but your new family's dead."

Then her no longer sweet smile broadened, like a dark, flickering tendril of spoiled sunlight.

"I know," she breathed, stepping toward him suggestively, her hips swaying. "I was counting on it."

She was nearly upon him now, standing so close he could probably reach her if he reached out to grab at her.

"You wanted me to kill them?" Dean questioned, wanting to keep her talking, keep her distracted.

She nodded, grinning viciously.

"I wanted to see if you were telling the truth," she said. "That you were really a hunter. I told my family about you when I was turned and they said that hunters were real, and that it would be real sport to set you loose in here and see what you've really got."

She sidled up close and reached her hand between his legs.

"Whoa!" Dean exclaimed, stepping back and swatting her hand away.

Her grin was taunting, tempting, and would almost be sexy if he didn't hate her so damned much for bringing five deaths into this place. The two dead vampires were as much victims of her carnage as the three corpses already tallied up.

"So what's with the posse of crazy?" Dean asked, taking another step back. He knew he should just stab her with the blood already and get it over with, but he wanted to see if he could get information from her first. He needed to know if there were any more vampires to worry about.

"They're insurance," she said with a yawn. "In case you somehow get the best of me."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning they're witnesses, Dean," she explained. "You've got a room full of people to scream through the rafters that you cut my head off. That is, as I said, only if you manage to beat me."

"Oh don't worry, sugar," he hissed. "I will." If she was using witnesses as insurance, it meant this was her last real card to play. Her vampire gang had already been taken out, making her the last. There weren't any others.

"Really?" she asked, tilting her head to the side casually. "Well aren't you a throw-yourself-on the-sword type. You take me down and then what happens, Dean? You go down to the _dungeon_ downstairs to be swallowed whole? Are you really ready for that?"

Dean tried not to gulp, keeping his glare locked on her, his face a mask of calm even though panic was clawing up his neck to strangle him.

"Just shut up and fight me already," he said tiredly. "I'm not really in the mood for another fucking villain monologue. I swear to God, you evil shits must read the same handbook on how to talk badass. And you all suck at it."

Suzanne laughed.

"See, I knew I made the right choice," she said, her pupils dilating with want and need. "They said I'd need someone strong."

"The who said what?"

"I can get you out of here, Dean," she purred, leaning in close again. "I can get you out of here and take you away from this hell."

Her hands ran along his chest, feeling his tight muscles, savouring the wild beating of his heart as it drummed against his chest.

He swallowed hard.

"Not interested," he said firmly.

"Come on, Dean," she cooed. "You'd make a perfect mate. You're strong and hard and agonizingly handsome. Like a beautiful, sad painting. I could spend eternity looking into those metal green eyes of yours."

"Yeah? Well I can't say the same for you there, Hotlips Houlihan." His shoulders shrugged. "I like my chicks alive."

"Please," Suzanne scoffed. "Dead or alive, I'm a hell of a lot better lay than that dried up excuse for a woman, Cheryl."

"What?" Dean sputtered, indignant, shocked, confused, and slightly embarrassed all at the same time. How the hell did she know about Cheryl? And what the hell was she talking about, dried up?

"I could smell you all over her, Dean," Suzanne said, purring again. "I gotta say, I'm impressed with the old girl for bagging the stallion. I mean, _damn!_"

It was perverse seeing the girl who had once been mousy, sweet Suzanne talking this way. Her vulgarity made him want to take a shower to wash the _ick_ away.

"Everyone wants a piece of Dean," he quipped instead, attempting to recapture his usual swagger. "But not everyone gets."

"Well your options aren't looking good," she said solemnly. "Either you fight me and win, which means you end up in a tiny stone cell until you die of despair; you fight me and die, which means you're dead; or you let me turn you so I can ride you at a gallop until we die again, and again, and again."

"All right!" Dean shouted, his ears burning at the suggestion. "Let's go with door number 1."

And without warning he drove the syringe into her neck, pressing down the plunger as he gritted his teeth in anger, frustration, and something else… Suppressed desire. That skeazy vamp was probably the last chance he was ever going to have of getting laid. But he'd be damned if he'd screw a vampire, or worse, become one of the things he hunted. Even Dean Winchester had standards.

Cheryl and Greg eased their way into the room once the coast was clear, the vampire properly dispatched, and began easing the patients out of the common room one by one. Dean stayed where he was, keeping an eye on the poisoned Suzanne, while the last of the patients were filed away back to their sterilized cages. Once the coast was clear, and he was finally alone, he wielded the dreaded cleaver, hacking into poor little Suzanne's exposed throat as she wailed in a primal shriek that sounded like it came straight from the belly of a demonic wildcat. She stilled and went silent and limp after the first stroke. It took seven to cut her head clean off her body. Then Dean promptly threw up.

Cheryl and Greg returned on the scene to see him wiping his bloodstained hands on his pants. He was trembling.

"You ok?" Greg asked tentatively.

"Yeah," Dean said, forcing a grin that never reached his eyes. "Bad guys are ganked. Everybody's gone back to bed. Just another day at the office… Er… Madhouse."

"So what do we do now?" Cheryl asked, rubbing her hands on her arms to warm herself against the chill spreading through her. The danger may be over, but they all feared the worst was yet to come. They all knew there would be hell to pay. And they all knew that Dean would be the one to pay it.

"There's no way to get out, is there?" Dean asked. "I mean, we can't really get off this floor without getting caught by security, right?"

He could see them looking to each other for some kind of solution, as if willing it to appear out of thin air, each willing the other to know of some secret passageway that would lead the young hunter to freedom and safety. But the truth came out through their shoulders slumped in defeat. There was no way out.

"Ok," Dean said, taking a deep breath. "Ok. I just gotta… Man, I gotta wash my hands. I need to get this freakin' blood off my hands."

"Sure thing, sweetie," Cheryl said soothingly, noticing right away that Dean's carefully constructed wall of power was beginning to crash now that the hunt was over and the job was done.

She took his elbow gently in her hand and urged him through the common room, down the corridor that led to the staff bathroom. The site of their recent illicit activity.

"What should we do?" Cheryl asked him as they made their way to the door. Greg watched intently for Dean's reply.

"You gotta get in touch with Bobby Singer," Dean said, swallowing past his fear. "He's with my dad and my brother right now. I think they're gonna try and break me out of here."

"Ok," Greg said. "Ok. And then what?"

"I don't know." It was hard to think. "Just call Bobby. He lives in South Dakota. He's got a salvage yard. Google him or something to get his number. Just call him and he'll tell you what to do."

"And tonight?" Cheryl asked.

"Tonight you both keep your mouths shut," Dean ordered, his eyes hard. "When they ask what happened you either say nothing,' or you say that I went batshit crazy and killed all those people. You got me?"

"What?" Twin shouts of shocked protest.

"If you say I took out a nest of vamps you'll both get fired," Dean explained patiently. "And then I won't have anyone left on the inside who can help me."

"But Dean…" Cheryl couldn't find the words to voice how wrong this all was. "You saved us. You saved all of us. We can't just stand back and let you take the blame…"

"Yes you can," Dean insisted. "You can and you will. Please? For me."

"Dean…"

"Please!" he pressed urgently. "I can't… I don't wanna be here _alone_."

It was more of a confession than he'd intended to make, and he knew it revealed even more about his fear than the trembling that wouldn't leave his hands. But he needed to know that they were going to be here, and that even though they wouldn't be around to see him or help ease his suffering while he was locked up with all the sickos downstairs, at least they were in the building, plotting to help him escape. He could endure whatever the dungeon threw at him so long as he had hope.

"Ok," Cheryl said at last. "We'll do it."

"But we're going to get you out, Dean," Greg insisted. "I'll tell Bruce. Maybe he can get moved back downstairs or something to keep an eye out on you."

Dean nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Thanks, man."

He ran his blood-sticky hands under the faucet and scrubbed, squeezing large dollops of liquid soap from the soap dispenser onto his palms and working it up into a sickly pink-orange lather. Cheryl tore some paper towel from the counter and eased it into the water, adding a few drops of soap to it as well and dabbing at the blood on Dean's face.

"Let's go for a look that doesn't scream serial killer," she said dryly.

Their eyes met in silent understanding. The world was ending tonight. Hell had broken loose, the devils had gotten out, and this was their last night on earth. Or at least it felt like it. Cheryl's gentle touch against his cheeks, along his neck, was enough to ignite a desperate fire deep within him, a fire that needed to be quenched now because it was his last night on earth. Soon he would be plunged into the dungeon and all the light of life would be gone. And Dean didn't know how long it would take for someone to break him out, or if it could even be done.

There was only now.

"Greg, could you please excuse us?" Dean asked, never taking his eyes off of Cheryl.

"Uh…. Yeah, sure," Greg said uncertainly, shuffling out the door with a quick glance at his co-worker. But her eyes never left Dean's.

Dean kicked the door shut with a light backswing of his foot and flicked the lock to 'occupied.'

They were both beyond words. Cheryl saw his need, tasted it in his eyes, which were bleeding desperate feeling all over his perfect, pale face. She knew that he needed this – it was like the last act of freedom of a man on the eve of his execution. And she was damned if she didn't need it too. Her whole world had become so complicated in a single night, vampires and monsters materializing in the real world when before they had only been creatures of fiction. The world wasn't the safe-ish place she had imagined it to be. It contained a closet of horrors, which been nipping away at the man steaming with rage and power and lust who stood before her. She needed to get lost in him so she could push her nightmares away. And she needed him to know that he was a hero.

Their lips crushed together, their hands pawing, clawing, tearing away clothing as if it couldn't be removed fast enough. She felt him swell with desire, her hand easing down the front of his light cotton pants to stoke his need. He moaned, a panted breath escaping into her mouth. It heightened her own pleasure, feeling him stiffen and melt at the same time at her ministrations.

Never one to be outdone, Dean's roaming hands played out a similar pleasure symphony on her tender parts, one hand cupping and toying with her breasts, the other sliding down the front of her hospital scrub pants, teasing between her legs. Her breath hitched as he teased her into a frenzy, butterflies dancing inside her, fluttering through her and up into her belly.

The foreplay was agonizing, intoxicating, and overwhelming, pushing them both beyond endurance. Desperation to complete the act fuelled them, drove them headlong into a tangled mound of flesh, Cheryl's back pressing against the cold floor, Dean's soft, bee-stung lips tracing a trail of bliss across her collarbone, along her neck. The melding was perfect, unbearable, almost destructive, driving them both out of their minds with complete fulfillment.

It was a good thing it was night and Greg was nearby to stand guard, because all attempts at quiet and discretion were abandoned. The moans, and grunts, and cries of joyful death were enough to make any listener feel the need of a cold shower or a warm companion. But they didn't care. The world was ending tonight. They rode the wave and crested together, dying on the shore, falling limp in each other's arms.

In the heat and the sweat and the fog, Cheryl wasn't sure she knew her own name. What she did know was that the man holding her in his arms, the man with the haunted green eyes, the sumptuous lips, the devil-sexy smile, and the heart of a warrior angel, was the strongest man she had ever known. And tonight, when the shit hit the fan, he would be walking to his doom. And come hell or high water, she was going to save him.


	12. Chapter 12

It was time to act. Sam could feel the need to do something driving through him like a pulse, beating in time with his heart with incessant need. _Get Dean out get Dean out get Dean out get Dean out_. It screamed in his head, driving him to distraction with its urgency. And Bobby Singer's easy manner and calm demeanour was driving him up the wall.

They couldn't just undo whatever spell had been don't to 'alter reality,' Bobby said. First they needed to know what was behind it, and though the grizzly old hunter had an idea of what it was, he wasn't sharing. He said he needed to talk to Dean first.

So the plan, for now, was to get Dean out. But as it turns out, breaking into a secured mental facility wasn't an easy thing to do, not that Sam had thought it would be. But there were schematics, architectural designs, sewer maps, and every other kind of map Sam could think of to pore over. They also needed someone on the inside, someone who could help them get Dean out by letting him through some of the more impenetrable areas without setting off the security alarms. And getting someone on the inside would definitely take time.

So they waited.

Sam watched as his father became increasingly more agitated. Like Sam, he wanted Dean out now. Hell, he wanted Dean out _yesterday_. His already thin patience was rapidly wearing down to the most gossamer of threads, and Sam knew that if they didn't act soon, John Winchester was going to explode – probably at Bobby. So it was to everyone's intense relief that Bobby's reinforcements arrived in the form of a thirty-something aged man who went by the name of Caleb, and a husband and wife team who called themselves Isaac and Tamara.

Once the cavalry arrived, the plan began to take shape.

"And what will I be doing?" Sam heard Jessica asking timidly. She had been quiet throughout the entirety of the plotting, having opted to remain Sam's anchor to his own sanity. Her steady hand in his, solid and true, gave him strength when his hopes were fading and gave him peace when he was plagued with guilt. Because Dean was suffering, had been suffering for so long, and he and his father hadn't been able to stop it.

"You'll be stayin' in the getaway car," Bobby instructed. "The three of you will."

John made an immediate move to protest.

"Now listen here!" he growled. "My son is in that place and I'm not just going to sit back and watch strangers break him out."

"They know what the three of you look like," Bobby snarled back. "You walk in there and the whole plan falls on its ass, ya idjit!"

"Bobby's right," Tamara said in her distinctly British accent, though in a calm and placating tone. "Best sit tight and let us hunters take care of it."

"And just to remind you," Bobby added hotly, "you came to this _stranger_ asking for help. Instead of gettin' in my face, you might try showin' a little gratitude."

John muttered something under his breath about _my son_ and _I'll show you gratitude_, but otherwise remained broody and silent.

"So if everything goes well," Caleb said hopefully, "we should have Dean out of there in three weeks tops. I just need to get my clearance and then I'm in."

Their discussion was abruptly put on hold by the incessant ringing of the telephone. Bobby held up a finger for Caleb to hold that thought and then jogged to the phone.

"Y'ello?" he asked. "Yes, this is Bobby Singer. [pause] Greg Russel, huh?"

They all watched as he impatiently listened to the speaker on the other end.

"Uh-huh, I'm sure you've got a fantastic set of steak knives that can cut through anything, but I don't got time right now to… [pause] You work _where?_"

Bobby's eyebrows raised into the shadow of his ball cap on his forehead. He paused and listened intently, his expression transforming from confusion to surprise, and then to amusement. There was a smile in his eyes.

"Hey Caleb," Bobby called, pulling the phone away from his mouth slightly. "You can forget about your clearance, buddy. We just got a call from someone on the inside, says he wants to help us break Dean out."

Sam's heart did a flipflop and he met his father's eyes to share the moment of excitement and relief. Sooner than they'd thought possible now, they'd be getting Dean out. Then they were going to make whoever had done this to Dean pay. Sam would make sure of that.

888

Fear has a strange effect on time. It stretches and bends it, shortens and warps it, so that some moments seem to last forever, others skipping by so fast you're left struggling to catch up. Dean watched in numb detachment as the world came crashing down after the discovery of the two bodies in the common room, and then immediately after they'd found the bodies in his room. Everything after that was a blur, a drug-induced haze.

Someone had called Walpole at home. He swooped onto the scene like a vampire from one of those old Dracula flicks, looming excitedly, though visibly shocked, over his most hated patient. Dean could see the satisfaction in his eyes when he learned what Dean had done, when he saw the carnage he had wrought. It was as if he'd been praying for this moment. The man's hands trembled, and to the casual observer it would appear the gruesomeness of the attacks had visibly shaken the doctor. But Dean saw the smile in his eyes, the satisfaction, heck, the elation in his expression, the tremulous timber of his voice as he tried to suppress his joy. He hadn't expected it, but he was elated that it had happened.

Hands, lots of hands, grabbed at him, poked at him, restrained him, subdued him, sending him into a fog of numbness. Dean could barely make out what anyone was saying. His brain was moving so slowly, everything else whizzing past so quickly, and he found himself being left behind. One moment he was strapped to a gurney. The next he was in a corridor. There were bright lights. Someone was talking, saying something about the judge granting the order of transfer. Then a big metal box – an elevator, maybe?

Another pinprick in the thigh sent him tumbling into darkness. He came to in a haze of dim light and stone walls, surrounded by angry, smug faces. Someone was tearing at his clothes: his shirt and pants removed as he tried to bat the hands away. But his body was a dead weight, his brain slogging through tar and unable to transmit messages to his limbs to tell them to move, fight back, stop them from doing this to him. Then he was being forced into a heavy white shirt with long sleeves, sleeves with no end. The straight jacket secured his arms against his own body, preventing any further attempts to fight. A nurse was shoving a fresh pair of cotton pants up his thighs, tying the drawstring at his waist while she hummed a tune.

Dean could only blink in confusion.

"Welcome to Hell," he thought he heard Walpole's voice say. Then there was mumbling, and people moving, and Walpole was saying something but Dean couldn't make it out. "… will break you. I promise…."

Another pinprick, and everything tilted.

The drug cocktail was different this time. Dean could feel the world spinning and swirling, tilting and moving around him. Colours and shapes bled, morphed, and transformed before his eyes. Voices screamed from faces that never spoke. Seeing and hearing things that weren't really there.

He crawled with scooting feet to the corner, burying his face in the wall to hide from the shapes that were forming, strange and grotesque shapes that threatened to invade the already terrifying space of his cell. Then the voices were gone. He was alone. But the shapes remained. The shapes loomed large in his vision, even when he closed his eyes, taunting him with their presence. He wanted to scream at them to go away, but instead opted to squeeze his eyes shut tight. _They're not real. They're not real. They're not real_.

He repeated the mantra until he blacked out.

A baby cried. He could hear the plaintive mewling of the thing even through the daze of sleep. It screamed in desperation, seeking solace, seeking _him_. It needed him.

_Sammy?_

He opened his eyes and saw a baby on the ceiling. Six months old. _When we were young_, _I pretty much pulled him from a fire. And ever since then I've felt responsible for him. Like it's my job to keep him safe_. The baby cried as it lay pinned above him by an invisible force. _Take your brother as fast as you can. Don't look back. Now Dean, go!_ Drops of blood trickled from the baby's abdomen, landing in fat splattering drops on Dean's cheek.

_Sammy!_

Flames erupted around the baby, engulfing it in liquid, red-orange tendrils.

"Sammy!" Dean shrieked.

He blinked and the scene had changed. He didn't know if it had been seconds, or minutes, or days even, since the baby had been crying. Since the fire…

But there were people, and the pinprick in his flesh, and the world tilting, and colours melting. The lumpy mattress beneath him swallowing him up, suffocating him.

Dr. Jameson was talking. Dean tried to listen. He tried so hard to listen, to grab ahold of some tiny portion of reality, to cling to something that was real.

"The vampires were a stroke of genius," she said. "Though I say it myself."

He was on the floor, lying on his stomach, his right cheek driven to the ground with force. Rough hands. Hot breath on his neck. A whiskered chin trailing along his flesh as he squirmed.

_Not real not real not real not real_.

A nurse calling his name. A spoon of applesauce easing its way between his lips, clattering against his teeth.

"That's a good boy."

Pinpricks against his skin, the world tilting, melting, swirling, changing. Blonde hair and the smell of vanilla. _Goodnight, love_. His mother screaming. Burnt flesh. Fire. Smoke.

"Why did you kill them, Dean?" Dr. Jameson's voice called out through the fog. "Why did you put the candle in your brother's crib?"

"I didn't," Dean mumbled. "I didn't. I didn't. I didn't."

Over and over again he said it, banging his head against the wall, driving the point home.

Restraints. Prone on his back, arms and legs extended. Trapped on his bed. Unable to move. A gruff face with eyes like death looming over him.

"How did you get in here?"

Black.

Fire on the ceiling. The baby crying. His mother's blonde hair disappearing in a whorl of smoke. Dr. Ellicott's hands on his face. _Don't be afraid_.

"This is how I break you." Dr. Walpole's voice said in the dark. "I can see it in your eyes already. You're lost."

"Not lost." _Not lost. Not lost not lost not lost_.

Pinpricks in his skin. The nurse with applesauce. Spoon clacking against his teeth. Bile rising in his throat.

Tilt-a-Whirl tumbling through space, hard stone against his face. _The best hunt is human_.

Rough hands. Dark, murderous eyes. Chin stubble scraping against his lips.

"Open your mouth, pretty boy."

Sweat and skin. Gagging.

Ache. Ache in the darkness. Someone was crying. Oh God someone was crying. Sobbing. His chest constricting with the sobs that were… _his_? Hot tears trailing down his cheeks. A soothing voice. A gentle hand on his brow. The nurse with the damned applesauce.

"I prefer steak."

The nurse chuckled. Dean opened his eyes, seeing for the first time in what felt like weeks. His cell of cold stone: four walls, a bed, a toilet, and a sink. No window. A big steel door. It was like a tomb. And he was strapped. Strapped to the bed like a sacrificial victim, awaiting dissection.

The nurse stood up to leave.

"Don't!" Dean pleaded. "Don't leave me! If you leave me they'll come back!"

He watched as she frowned.

"Please don't leave me alone in here!" He couldn't stop the tears as he sobbed piteously. "When I'm alone the world changes…"

"It's all right," she cooed, heading toward the door. "Dr. Walpole is coming."

"NO!"

But she was gone. Dean blinked and the looming Dracula-flick doctor was there, staring down at him, his eyes gleaming. Satisfied. Enraptured.

"How does it feel Dean?"

"Please!" Dean begged. He couldn't stop sobbing.

"Not yet," Walpole said, grinning. "You're not quite broken enough. When you're shattered… Then I'll have had my revenge."

Dean gulped a breath of air, his chest hitching as he hiccoughed with the inhalation.

"Please please!" he sobbed. "I just wanna go h-home!"

It frightened him that he didn't even know if this was real, or another hallucination. But he had to try. He was so scared, and tired, and confused.

"Let me tell you a little story, Dean," Dr. Walpole said, seating himself on the bed in the space between Dean's extended right arm and leg.

"Once upon a time there was a man named John. John had two sons. One of them was quite remarkable. The other one wasn't. Does this sound familiar, Dean?"

Dean blinked past the tears but said nothing.

"John would do anything for his sons," Walpole went on. "So when he found out that his remarkable son was mixed up in some kind of demon war, and that the demons were after him, he decided to take measures. Can you imagine what he did Dean?"

Dean shook his head no.

"He started chasing the demons," Walpole said conspiratorially. "He became a hunter, and trained his two boys to be hunters as well. And while they were sleeping snug in their beds at night, John went off searching for the demons."

Dean swallowed hard, waiting for the doctor to continue on to his point.

"Then the remarkable son went away to college, and John started asking questions. He started seeking out these demons, forcing them to answer his questions about their plans for his son. Then one day John and the unremarkable son showed up in town, where John tortured a demon for information. Before he could exorcise it, it got away."

Dr. Walpole waited, glad to see that he had Dean's full attention.

"So what happened?" Dean whispered.

"The unremarkable son fucked my daughter," the man replied darkly. "Picked her up in a bar with a couple of beers and a smooth line, and led the demon right to her. You see, he didn't know what his daddy was up to. The next day he and John were gone, moved on to the next town and the next job, but the demon was still there. It crawled inside her and took over her body. It rode her until there was nothing left of her inside. Until she was broken. Shattered."

So that was it. The reason all of this was happening.

"I'm sorry," Dean said weakly.

Walpole grabbed his face with one hand, his fingers digging into his cheeks.

"I've already told you," he hissed, his nostrils flared. "This isn't about you. Pretty soon you'll be gone – a dried husk rotting away in a hospital just like my daughter. This…" he waved his free hand around the empty room. "This is all for John Winchester."

He released Dean's face with a shove, causing his teeth to crash together violently. Then, without warning, he jabbed a needle into Dean's leg.

"Say goodbye to reality, Dean," Walpole said sweetly. "I hope you like the cocktail I've mixed up for you. Pleasant dreams and midnight visitors."

The world was already tilting, colours shifting, shadows appearing on the wall, flames erupting on the ceiling. A monster with a patchwork face of stolen flesh, stolen tattoo blue-black in the dim light.

"You did fuck my daughter, after all," Walpole explained. And then he was gone.


	13. Chapter 13

"As you can see, the patients for the most part are quite calm and subdued," Dr. Walpole explained conversationally, leading the pretty young doctor through the common area as her keen dark eyes quickly appraised the room, taking in the sight of the patients as they drooled onto their own laps, staring vacantly out windows or rocking gently back and forth in their differing states of delirium and madness.

"We have an excellent staff here," he said proudly, watching her as she surveyed the orderlies as they patrolled the room. "Professional, well-trained."

She nodded her approval and looked at him with a hopeful yet expectant smile. Her brilliant white teeth, he noticed, seemed to glow in contrast with her dark, chocolate skin.

"I think you'll find," she said in her charming British accent, "that I would make an excellent addition to your team. And I can't thank you enough for agreeing to speak with me about this possible job opening – I understand that the position hasn't been vacated yet?"

"Yes," he said soberly. "Dr. Jameson – excellent therapist, just excellent – will be moving on very shortly to bigger and better things. So there will be a job opening soon. We just can't say when, exactly."

She nodded again.

"Well I do hope that you will keep me in mind," she said brightly. "Folks back home would say I've gone off my nut for wanting to work here of all places, but I confess my main area of interest has always been with the macabre side of psychiatry."

Dr. Walpole arched an eyebrow.

"Really?" he asked, his interest piqued.

"It started with Jack the Ripper," she admitted sheepishly. "I believe I was twelve. And it sort of branched off from there."

"Yes, I see from your CV that you wrote your dissertation on criminal psychology," Walpole said, eyeing her CV appraisingly. "Ted Bundy, huh?"

"He was one of the greats," she confessed proudly. "And I understand you've got a few monsters here at Golden Brooke that make old Teddy look like a harmless kitten."

He could see something like nervous excitement in her eyes. _She wants to go down and see them_, he thought. _This beautiful, fiery little upstart wants to go down to the dungeon to take a look at our very own monsters_. He felt a thrill at the very idea of parading her through those dark halls. It was so very rare that anyone ever wanted to venture down there if they didn't have to. The dungeon housed the lowest forms of humanity and depravity – people who were borne of everyone else's worst nightmares. And she wanted to go down and peek in on the horror show.

"Yes," he said, reining his thoughts back to the conversation. "We've got quite a few."

"Adrian Lewis?" she asked hopefully. "Murdered and ate his entire family?"

Walpole nodded.

"Marcus Brewer?"

"Unfortunately, yes," he said. "He's quite a hand-full, I don't mind saying."

"Is it true they found five more bodies after he was convicted?" she asked.

Again, Walpole nodded. "Of course, no one knew those poor boys were even missing. Most of them were prostitutes or drug addicts."

"And Dean Winchester?" she asked. He thought he saw her gulp reflexively.

"Oh yes," he said, suppressing the shiver of excitement. "He's here. He's worse than all of them put together."

"I would imagine," she said emphatically. "He managed to kill six people while he was locked up in here, after all."

He had to suppress his grin. The joy bubbling up within him, remembering the fractured state of the young man in the cell deep in the bowels of the institution, screaming, weeping, blubbering like a child and hiding from his own shadow. It wouldn't be long now before the thin threads holding his mind together were torn completely. Soon there would be nothing left of Dean Winchester.

"Is it true he decapitated three of his victims?" she asked, so quietly he almost didn't hear her. "And uh, tore out the throats of the other three?"

"Sadly, yes," Walpole said, forcing calm, forcing sobriety and sombre when all he wanted to do was dance a jig at his success. "He is a very disturbed young man."

"But a fascinating study," she said, grinning shyly. "Forgive my coldness, doctor, but I find the study of the illness to be far more compelling than treating patients. I guess you could say I'm more of a scientist than a doctor in that respect."

"It is always wise to find a balance of both," he said, remembering a time long ago when he had been a doctor, when he had cared about the patients he treated. The words were like ash in his mouth, the feelings dead in his soul. His battered, bartered soul. Soon, now. Soon.

"But I think I understand you," he added as an aside, hoping to reassure her. "For some people it is all about the patients. Helping people. For others, the true scientists, it's about the study – about discovery."

"And that's where I envy you, Dr. Walpole," she said wistfully. "In that regard you are sitting on a veritable treasure trove."

He allowed himself to grin.

"Care to take the extended tour?" he offered.

888

The door to the van slid open, the tiny Brit sliding her way in with one quick glance over her shoulder before grasping the door with two hands and sliding it closed behind her.

"I've seen him," Tamara said, her cheeks flushing. "And it's bad. It's very bad."

Isaac twisted his torso in the driver's seat and turned to look at his wife, but it was Sam who spoke.

"What? What is it?"

She shook her head, her eyes downcast for a moment.

"That sick bastard's got him locked up in a cell that would rival the dungeons in the bloody Tower of London," she said through gritted teeth. "Drugged to insanity. Poor bloke is so lost he can't even recognize his own name."

Sam felt he might vomit. He could feel bile rising in the back of his throat, which was a real hazard at the moment because his throat had chosen that moment to constrict painfully, choking him with unsuppressed emotion.

"But I thought you said that there was an orderly looking out for him," he heard himself protesting. "I thought… Someone is there watching out for him, right? Greg said that someone was –"

"Yes, Sam," Tamara said soothingly, laying a comforting hand on his knee. "Young chap named Bruce. He was there. Barely made eye contact with me, of course. But I saw him hovering around the cell, watching the doctor. Watching your brother."

Sam swallowed hard and took a steadying breath.

"So this is it," he said. "Bobby and Caleb are ready to move in tonight, right? We're getting Dean out tonight?"

"Tonight," Tamara and Isaac replied as one.

888

The baby was screaming again. He could hear it crying in the darkness, but he refused to open his eyes this time. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't. The sight of that tiny wailing figure, pinned above him, its wriggling limbs aflame with skin peeling and blistering with the gagging stench of charred flesh. Human meat. He could smell it in the air, licking his skin and seeping into his pores.

_Look after your brother, boy!_ That voice in his head telling him how much he had failed. He had failed. _He had failed_. The baby was screaming and Dean had done nothing to stop it. Sammy was burning to ash above him and he had failed.

No wonder Dad had left him.

A key ground in the lock. Metal clanging, bars opening. Dean squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the horrors, willing them to disappear. He pressed his body deeper into the corner, shrinking into his own skin. Waiting for the pinprick. Waiting for rough hands.

"Dean?" A familiar voice in the dark, kind, soothing. _Not real_.

"Dean?" The voice grew closer.

"Dean?" Closer still. A hand on his shoulder.

"NO!" Dean cried, jerking away, eyes open in a flash. "Don't touch me! Don't fuckin' touch me!"

In his panic he didn't even feel the hard concrete as his flailing head hit the wall again and again. He just wanted the hands to go away. He wanted the intruders to go away. Before they changed. Before they started to hurt him.

"Dean, it's me," the voice said. "It's Bruce. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Get away!" Dean shrieked, kicking out with his feet. He heard a grunt as the figure before him slumped over in pain, his foot having struck paydirt with ball-busting impact.

"Well this ain't good," another familiar voice said.

Dean's wild eyes looked up into a face he knew well. He hoped, _God_, he dared hope that it was really Bobby Singer. But the man before him looked strange, like a stranger. The face was the same, but there was no recognition. He looked at Dean as though he had never seen him before in his life.

"No," Dean pleaded. He knew what this meant. The monsters were going to hurt him in the guise of his friends. It had happened before. He'd seen it. Sam, with a shotgun, aimed at his chest, shooting him point blank through a crumbling wall. Sam with a gun pointed at his face, pulling the trigger again, and again, and again. They all wanted to hurt him.

"No-nononono! Please don't!"

Another voice from behind Bobby spoke up.

"We'll never get him out of here like this," he heard Caleb say. _Oh God, not Caleb too?_ "He's hysterical."

"No shit, Sherlock!" not-Bobby hissed. "He's gonna bring the whole house down! We gotta sedate him."

He knew it. _He knew it!_ The horrors were about to begin.

"NO!" Dean wailed, flailing his legs desperately as the man who looked like Bruce raised a syringe and loomed toward him menacingly.

"Dean, I promise you, we're not going to hurt you," the man said, but the syringe kept coming closer.

Dean redoubled his efforts with more mad flailing, kicking out viciously to keep his attackers at bay. But with his arms pinned uselessly at his sides it was a losing battle. Within seconds they were upon him, rough hands forcing him down.

"Dean, I'm really sorry," not-Greg's voice said. "I have to do this, ok? To get you out of here…"

The pinprick in his thigh. The world tilting. Fog amidst the grumbling voices. But no blending of colours, no shifting of shapes. Only darkness. And then, nothing.

888

Bobby Singer never would have imagined, in all his years as a hunter, that the plan to infiltrate a maximum security mental institution and steal away one of its most highly guarded inmates would have been hatched by a pretty blonde girl who said that, "Annie snuck out with the laundry," when she suggested that they do the same with Dean. Annie, it turns out, was none other than the little orphan Annie. The chick liked musicals, apparently.

As it turned out, the laundry scheme was the best plan they had. With three staffers on the inside helping to coordinate the mission, Tamara having already scouted out the building on the inside, he and Caleb were able to get in, bundle the heavily sedated young hunter into a heap of dirty sheets and hospital scrubs, and steal him out the service doors at the back and into the service van that took all the linens of the Golden Brooke Asylum to a cleaning service. John Winchester was behind the wheel of the van this time, however. And the destination was most definitely not Lovely Linens.

To everyone's intense relief, the entire plan went off without a single hitch. Dean's friends on the inside, Greg, Bruce, and the nurse Cheryl, had made getting in and getting access to Dean easy. Both Bobby and Caleb had been disguised as maintenance staff, complete with one-piece navy coveralls and mop/bucket trolleys. They had timed it well, arriving on the basement floor when Walpole's two stooges for guards were on their break. The remaining guard, a man named Ted, was good friends with Bruce and had kindly opted to look the other way while they stole their way into Dean's room and secreted him out. Bruce had been waiting for them in the dingy, dank corridor that leads to the main cell block, when they got there. Then it had been a small matter of subduing Dean and getting him beyond the cell block to the service elevators.

Then Greg had appeared on the scene with a huge laundry hamper: Dean was carefully buried inside and the rest was history. They had broken up into teams, piled into their respective vehicles, and had been burning rubber ever since. They cleared two states before they even thought about stopping.

The ranch that Caleb directed them to was spacious. A wealthy hunter and his wife, Reggie and Mags Lovett, had agreed to take the odd assorted group of hunters, hospital staff, and civilians in, welcoming them to their home with warm hospitality. Getting Dean somewhere safe and comfortable, where the nurse Cheryl could look after him, was priority one. They laid him out on the bed of one of the spare rooms upstairs and Cheryl immediately went to work. The Winchester's waited patiently for the woman to check over her patient, making sure that he hadn't gone into any kind of shock throughout the whole ordeal, and then both stood in silent vigil over the sleeping young man.

"I gotta tell ya," Bobby said to no one in particular as he sipped at a large tumbler of brandy, his weary bones resting comfortably in the large, black leather recliner of the Lovett's high-ceilinged living room. "He ain't what I expected."

"Who?" Caleb asked. "The Winchester boy?"

Bobby nodded. "Kinda girly pretty, if you ask me," he said gruffly. "An' he sure don't look like no hunter."

"Well believe me," Greg spoke up. "He is."

With all three of the Winchesters occupied upstairs, they were free to talk about them as they pleased.

"Oh that's right," Tamara said. "You were there when he took out those vamps, yeah?"

He nodded.

"Impressive," Isaac said, his eyebrows raised in a kind of smirk. "Taking out three of them without even having a machete…"

"Well it doesn't look like there's much of him left now," Caleb pointed out darkly. "I mean, wow. The poor kid is wrecked."

"How about we show _the poor kid_ some fucking respect, huh?" Greg snapped. "You have no idea what it was like for him in there," he added hotly. "Caged up like an animal, drugged into submission… And in spite of all the terrible things we did to him, he stood up like a goddamned hero and saved all our asses the _minute_ he knew we were in danger."

"Listen, we ain't downplayin' what he did in there," Bobby said.

"Sounds like it to me," Greg retorted.

"Look man," Bruce said, reluctantly joining the conversation. "They get it. I mean, they sort of orchestrated the whole rescue mission. They're just shootin' the shit, right?"

"That's right," Tamara said soothingly. "Don't pay them any mind."

"Will he be out for long?" Jessica asked timidly. Everyone turned to look at her, somewhat startled, having forgotten that she was there. She was so quiet when Sam wasn't around that they often forgot that the long-legged blonde was with them.

"He should be coming around soon, actually," Bruce replied. "The sedative I gave him has probably worn off by now. Though sheer exhaustion and stress might keep him out for longer."

"Let's just hope he's in better shape when he wakes up than when he found him," Bobby said ruefully. "Cos I'm startin' to worry that maybe we got to him too late."

888

It was amazing how young Dean looked when he slept. To Sam he had always been the larger-than-life big brother, the flying buttress of support in all the darker moments of the Winchesters' lives – that is, until the incident with the girl that set this whole nightmare in motion. Before then Dean had always been the solid pillar of support that kept Sam standing, kept him upright when he would otherwise fall. And even when Sam grew up into his 6'4" frame, Dean had always seemed so damned tall. Sam had looked up to him. But damn if he didn't look like he was seventeen, and not twenty-seven, when he slept.

Sam watched the steady rise and fall of his sleeping brother's chest, taking in the sight of his too pale skin with a wince. There was a dark scrape on his right cheekbone, red and scabbing and bruised near his eye, and here and there, especially along his arms, were bruises in various stages of healing. Sam wondered how many of them were self-inflicted, how many were the result of being restrained, and how many were from rough treatment. His blood boiled at the thought of those bastards hurting Dean, especially when he was restrained and drugged and left with no means of defending himself. When they figured out how to set things right, Sam was going to make them pay for what they'd done.

And that thought brought him back to the very strange truth that faced him. His place in this world was wrong. Reality had been altered. His memories of Dean – of him being the protective big brother who took care of him through their dad's drinking binges and week-long benders – were memories conjured up for a fake reality. A false reality. The Dean in whatever universe they were supposed to be from could be totally different. But then, Sam highly doubted that. It wasn't Dean that had been changed for this freakshow – he was the one transplanted here. Besides, Sam couldn't imagine any world where Dean wasn't the quintessential over-protective, self-sacrificing big brother. It was who Dean was. It was what made Dean _Dean_.

As if in answer to his brooding thoughts, his brother stirred.

"Dean?" Sam whispered tentatively.

Dark lids fluttered, opening slowly, heavily, as if struggling against a great weight pressing down on them, and then closed. Then they fluttered again, opening more quickly this time, eventually resting at half mast.

"Dean?" Sam whispered again, taking his brother's hand in his and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

It was as if the sleeping man had been electrocuted.

Without warning he tore his hand away and flung himself back, his knees to his chest, his arms held out protectively in front of him, his eyes wild.

"Don't!" he cried hoarsely, glancing briefly at the ceiling. "Don't touch me!"

"Dean, it's me," Sam said, his lip trembling and his eyes stinging with tears. "It's Sam."

"You're not real," Dean replied, shaking his head in denial and closing his eyes tight. He swayed slightly as he sat, still under the power of the multitude of drugs running through his system.

"Shh-sh-sh," Sam whispered. "It's ok, man. I'm here. I'm real. I'm not going anywhere."

That gentle reassurance did not have the desired effect and Sam winced once again as his brother flinched, shrinking into himself.

"You shot me," Dean croaked brokenly. "Pointed my gun in my face and pulled the trigger… three times. But there were no bullets."

Sam could only imagine what must have driven his brother to such delusions. Maybe they hadn't gotten to Dean in time? Maybe they were too late?

"Listen bro," Sam assured him. "I'd never shoot you, man."

"But you did," Dean said, stifling a sob. "Blasted me full of rock salt. Said I was pathetic. So I gave you my gun, to see if you'd do it… And you did."

_What have they done to you?_ Sam wondered. _How could you ever think I would try to shoot you?_

Just then there was a gentle rap on the door and Cheryl peeked her head through the crack of the door as she opened it.

"Everything ok?" she asked quietly. "I heard voices."

Sam looked to his brother's wild eyes, which had widened in terror at the newcomer on the scene. He thought maybe he should call their dad back in. He'd only just left to take a quick nap while Dean was still out of it.

"Hey Dean," Cheryl called smoothly from the doorway, easing her way into the room cautiously. "Gonna flash me some of that handsome smile?"

The tremors in Dean's shoulders relaxed somewhat, his eyes softening.

"Cheryl?"

"Yeah, kiddo," she said, smiling, crossing the floor to the bed.

"Oh thank God you're here!" he said in a rush, swallowing hard, choking back the feelings of terror with visible effort. It was only then that he seemed to realize that he was no longer in his cell at Golden Brooke. He made a quick scan of the room, taking in the sight of the four-poster bed upon which he sat, the large oak armoire and dresser against the far wall, the closet door near the corner, and the bay window that had no bars on it.

"Where the hell am I?" he asked with a frown. He shook his head as if attempting to shake the cobwebs away. "Oh God, it's the drugs isn't it?"

But Cheryl's warm smile, the glimmer in her eyes that said angels are real, Christmas is coming every day, and your greatest wish has just come true, put the lie to that fear.

"No," she replied. "Dean, you're out. Your brother, and your dad, and your friends – they got you out."

"Ok, now I know I'm dreaming," he said, smiling faintly, his eyes meeting hers with a silent plea. _Tell me I'm not dreaming_, the look said.

"See for yourself," Cheryl said, nodding toward Sam. "The shaggy-haired giant right in front of your face isn't a figment of your imagination, Dean. It's your brother. It's Sam."

"Hey Dean," Sam heard himself saying in a pathetically weak voice. It was a wonder he had a voice at all when those depthless green eyes locked onto his, haunted and misting with unshed tears.

"Sammy?"


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Notes:

Wow -- it's been a bit of a wait for this chapter, hasn't it? Sorry guys -- I was prolonging the inevitable because the next chapter is giving me a lot of trouble and doesn't want to write itself. I've been trying to pace the posting so that there weren't huge gaps between chapters, but no such luck. Not sure when you'll be getting the next installment (maybe by the weekend?), but I promise you this story does have an end in sight, so I won't be abandoning it any time soon. I've just got a hurdle to leap over and I feel like I'm working with a handicap. Hope this makes up for the wait, and as always, thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! You feed the muse and make this girl grin like a loon.

* * *

888

It was difficult to step out of the fog as it misted and swirled around him. At first everything around him was a myriad of small terrors and colours, and shapes bled, shifted, and transformed before his eyes. It wasn't nearly as bad as it had been at the asylum, but the drugs hadn't completely run their course yet, leaving some residual morphing to freak Dean out enough to want to be alone. The curtains, for instance, insisted on turning into snakes, while Sam's head suddenly bloated and turned into a shiny red balloon. But the part of his brain that was awakening in the fog, the part that had clung tenaciously to reality, told him that he was safe, he was out, and was on the mend. He just needed to ride it out.

_Think of it as a bad acid trip_, he told himself. _You've been there before – though never like this. Just ride it out through the next few hours and you'll be fine. The nightmare will be over_.

And eventually it was. The others left him alone, Cheryl occasionally peeking in to check on him, to provide him with water or with a snack, which he couldn't quite make himself eat, until finally he felt lucid enough to rejoin the land of the living. It was like stepping out of a coma. A freaky-ass, drug-induced, nightmare of a coma.

When he finally emerged from his room it was to find himself alone in a corridor of what appeared to be a very large and well-kept home. He moved silently on bare feet, creeping down the empty hallway until he reached the landing of a heavy, wooden staircase. He could hear voices coming from below and took a deep breath to steady himself. It was now or never. Shaking off his fears, he made his way down the stairs.

When he reached the bottom he could see what appeared to be a wide, open foyer. To the right of the foyer was an empty dining room, to the left a wide corridor. The voices were much closer now and Dean made his way toward them. At its end, the corridor opened out into an expansive living room, and inside were an assorted group of people, most of whom he recognized immediately, but several of them were complete strangers to him. But the two faces he most wanted to see, needed to see, were what drew his attention. Sam and Dad. They were here: they had come to his rescue, had pulled him from that hell and were now sitting patiently on a large black leather sofa, chatting with the other assembled guests. Everyone waited for their charge to emerge from his stupor upstairs. A fire in the fireplace at the back wall crackled, spitting up the occasional angry red spark. No one had noticed Dean standing there.

Dean settled for an uncomfortable cough to signal to his rescuers that he was in the room and all eyes immediately turned toward him.

"Dean!" Sam's voice rang out, a rush of relief and fear and joy with that simple word.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said with a sheepish grin, scratching absently at the back of his head. Now that he was up and around, he felt embarrassed. Everyone in this room had seen him at his most vulnerable. They'd seen him in the throes of drug-induced insanity, lost and frightened and (he suspected) sobbing like a child at the helplessness he'd felt. They'd seen him when he'd been small and broken.

But he didn't have long to wallow in his own self-consciousness because in a flutter of movement Dean found himself suddenly besieged by long arms and shaggy hair, and then more arms and darker hair with the slightest speckling of gray, and his father's scruff was rubbing against his cheek as he was nearly suffocated in a bear hug. And damn them both for being so tall, being hugged by the two giants at once had him lifted off his feet.

"Dude!" Dean croaked, struggling for a breath and desperately trying to squash his overwhelming emotions into the pit of his stomach. "Can't breathe!"

But John Winchester wasn't listening. He held firm, grasping at his eldest as if he feared he'd turn to dust if he let go.

"Son!" he whispered brokenly, clinging to Dean like he was a life preserver. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Hearing the despair in his father's voice almost brought Dean to his knees. There had been so many times in his life when he'd wanted to hear, longed to hear, his father say that he was sorry. Hunts gone bad where Dean had found himself taking all the blame for circumstances completely beyond his control; harsh words and accusations slung at him in the aftermath of a fight with Sam, because he was an easy target that never fired back; and years of neglect, of feeling unworthy and unnecessary as anything other than his brother's protector, had left Dean yearning to hear those two words. I'm sorry.

But now they merely disembowelled him. This broken version of his father wasn't the pillar of strength that Dean needed. He needed that gruff, distant, barking asshole that was John Winchester. He needed him to clap him on the shoulder and say, "Suck it up, son. We got a job to do." Because that was how Winchesters dealt with pain and moved on. _I'm sorry_ and _I'm so sorry_ didn't get the job done. Hugs and tears only left you crippled with your guts spilling all over the floor. And now, Dean knew he was haemorrhaging.

"It's ok, Dad," he forced himself to say in a garbled and gravelly voice that barely resembled his own. "Everything's ok."

And then he felt the man ease up.

It was like that dream everyone talks about, where you're walking down the street naked and everyone stares at you – and you keep walking, painfully aware of your own nakedness, self-conscious, and burning with shame, but with no means of covering yourself up, you're forced to trundle ahead to wherever it is you're going. And that was precisely how Dean felt at that particular moment. It didn't help that he was scantily clad in only a thin pair of gray cotton hospital pants and white t-shirt, while everyone else in the room appeared to be bundled up in winter-wonderland warm sweaters, turtlenecks and warm woolly socks. All eyes were on him, waiting for him to say something, to make some kind of grand revelation perhaps, or to fall to a gibbering, sobbing mass on the floor after the traumatic events he'd just been through. He could see the apprehension in their eyes behind their forced hopeful smiles.

"Wow, I'd trade my left nut for an invisibility ray," Dean muttered under his breath.

"How're you feelin' sweetie?" Cheryl's voice called out from the crowd. It was then that Dean noticed the three hospital staffers, Cheryl, Greg, and Bruce standing among the assembled people in the room.

"'M good," he lied casually, feeling heavy-hearted and overwhelmed. "Listen, uh… What you guys did…? All of you guys… breaking me out – I can't – I can't thank you enough."

And he meant it. They had all put so much on the line, had risked so much, to break him free, some of them merely on the word of a committed, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. It had taken a major leap of faith for the hunters gathered before him. And Sam and Jessica and Dad… For them to leap headlong into this madness must have been like willingly leaping into a raging, crazy nightmare.

"Don't sweat it, kid," Bobby said genially, and Dean felt his face splitting into a grin.

"Bobby!" he exclaimed, a rush of gratitude washing through him. "Man, am I ever glad to see you!"

He took several strides toward the surly hunter and clapped him warmly on the back.

"I knew if anyone could shovel through this pile of shit, it'd be you!"

It took Dean a moment to register that the confused and strained look on the older hunter's face came from a complete lack of recognition. Bobby had never laid eyes upon him until this rescue mission. He had no memory of Dean in this twisted reality.

"Right," Dean said, coughing awkwardly. "So…"

"Glad to see you up and about," a pretty young woman with short cropped, pixie black hair and flawless brown skin said in a prim British accent.

"Thanks," Dean replied, smiling awkwardly. He had no idea who she or the large, hulking black man holding her hand were. "Friends of yours, Bobby?"

Bobby nodded.

"Tamara and Isaac," he said. "Hunters like me. And this here," he began, indicating the thin and prematurely balding man standing near the fireplace, "is—"

"Caleb!" Dean said, his grin returning. It had been at least a year since he'd seen his dad's young hunter friend. But once again the confused looks he was receiving from everyone reminded him that the only people in the room that actually knew him at all were his brother, father (and by extension, Jessica) and the three Golden Brooke staff members.

"I thought you said you guys had never met Dean," Greg said warily, eying the hunters. "He sure seems to know you two pretty well."

Bobby huffed and snorted a laugh.

"Guess we just got our confirmation that the kid ain't crazy like we were all secretly fearin.'" No one replied. "I'd swear up and down I never once laid eyes on Dean Winchester, but I can see plain as day that he knows me."

"We called you uncle Bobby," Dean said with raised eyebrows, smirking. He knew that admission would be mortifying to the grim old hunter.

"Not in this life," Bobby said ruefully.

"You're right about that," Dean agreed. "Definitely not in this one." He took a deep breath and sighed heavily, noticing the tension mounting as everyone continued to watch him, as if they were all waiting for him to do or say something that would steer the conversation forward.

"So ok," Dean said, grimacing, "Moving right along then. What've you got? How the hell did that crazy wackjob Walpole work his mojo to change reality?"

There was a collective sigh of relief from everyone in the room.

"So you know who's behind it?" Sam asked tentatively. "You know for sure that it was Dr. Walpole who orchestrated all this?"

Dean nodded.

"Smug bastard told me. Said he, uh… well, he wanted revenge."

"That's what I thought," Bobby said darkly. "And he wanted revenge against you? Did he say why?"

Dean chewed the inside of his right cheek in thought.

"Well not exactly," he said with some hesitation. "It wasn't me he wanted revenge against, exactly…"

He couldn't bring himself to look at his father. The man was broken enough about what had happened to Dean without learning that this whole thing had been meant to punish John Winchester and not Dean. But Sam was too sharp for his own good.

"Dad," Sam breathed, casting a brief glance at their father and then meeting his brother's eyes. "It was like you said earlier at Golden Brooke, isn't it? This is all about Dad."

Dean swallowed hard and nodded, his eyes cast to the ground.

"Me?" John demanded in a strangled voice. "Why me? I'd never even met the guy until we went to visit you back in February!"

"Dad, it's not your fault," Dean assured him. "The guy's nuts because his daughter got caught in the crossfire of a hunt that went kinda sideways. He wants you to suffer like he suffered."

"But why would he take it out on you?" John demanded. "You're innocent in all of this! Why the hell would he torture you just to get revenge on me? What kind of fucking sicko is he?"

"The kind that would sell his soul to get revenge," Bobby cut in. "Look, much as I'd love to sit here and listen to the family song of 'Don't Blame Yourself,' and 'It's All My Fault,' but we got bigger fish to try an' we're kinda on the clock."

"Who shot who in the what now?" Dean asked in confusion. "What the hell are you talkin' about Bobby? Walpole sold his soul?"

"Called on the powers of a vengeance demon," Bobby replied. "If I had to take a guess, anyway. Far as I can tell there ain't no other being that's powerful enough to completely alter reality like this – even Djinn's can only spin dreams. They don't grant wishes."

"A vengeance demon?" Dean asked. "Like on Buffy?"

Bobby screwed up his face in confusion. "Do I look like I watch Buffy the flippin' Vampire Slayer?"

"Man that Anya was hot," Dean mused absent-mindedly. Then he pulled himself back to the moment. "Ok, so Walpole calls on some kind of vengeance demon and does what? Sells his soul to yank me into this hell-verse so he can make Dad suffer? Sounds like a whole lot of trouble for a little bit of revenge…"

"Yeah, well, for some people grief leads to anger, and then anger leads to –"

"The dark side of the Force?" Dean supplied. Jessica snickered and then hid behind Sam to avoid Bobby's scowl.

"Ok, so what the hell is a vengeance demon?" Dean asked. "I've heard of Crossroads demons and Sam and I took out a Phantom Traveller a few months back… But…"

"There're probably a hundred different names for 'em," Bobby explained. "Eumenides, Furies, Dirae. Mythology's kind of sketchy, but basically they can be called upon to exact vengeance at a high price."

"Your soul?" Sam asked.

Bobby nodded.

"You mean to tell me Walpole sold his soul so he could torture Dean just to get revenge on John?" Bruce asked.

"And when he finally gets what he wants, the demon will come to collect," Bobby explained. "In this case, my guess is he wants –"

"Me broken," Dean said quietly. He couldn't bring himself to elaborate, memories of Walpole's words haunting him with cold menace. The man had wanted to destroy Dean's mind so that there would be nothing left. Fragmented images danced before his eyes of a flaming baby on the ceiling and monsters attacking him while he was strapped to his bed, unable to fight back. The scent of sweat and the feel of hands on him in the dark... He couldn't remember anything clearly, and for now he counted that a blessing.

"And when that happens?" Sam asked.

"His bill comes due," Bobby replied. "Hell hounds will come to collect."

"So how do we stop it?" John asked. "Do we kill the demon or what?"

"You can't kill a demon," Isaac said patiently. "You can exorcise it. Would exorcising it break the spell, though?" He turned to Bobby expectantly.

"I don't know," Bobby admitted. "Never had to break a vengeance spell before. I been goin' through my sources and have a few theories, but it'd be a guess at best at this point."

"And how do we find the demon to exorcise it?" Sam asked. "I mean, where is it? Is it in Hell, or is it wandering around the street going 'La-la-la, Vengeance for sale! Get some nice hot vengeance!'?"

"Cut the comedy, smartass," Bobby griped, but John and Dean both snorted with laughter.

"Well we gotta do something," John growled. "And sooner would be better than later. Whatever plans that sick doctor's got for Dean, it ends now."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dean said, backpedalling. "Hold up. I'm all for taking out a demon as much as the next guy, but you guys are just a bunch of civies. Besides, we don't know for sure that we can even undo the spell to change everything back to the way it was." _And if I have any say in it, we're not going to_.

"Well we can't just leave Walpole and his demon free to chase after you," John argued.

"Sure we can," Dean replied. "The hard part's over – you guys got me out. Now everybody can just go back to their lives and uh… live easy."

Everyone in the room was looking at him like he'd just sprouted a few extra heads.

"What are you talking about, Dean?" Sam asked incredulously. "Walpole needs to be stopped. That demon needs to be stopped. What's to stop them from coming after you again?"

"I'll hide," Dean said with a shrug, hating that the words were coming out of his mouth. But the alternative to hiding was worse. Sam didn't know what he was unknowingly giving up in insisting on taking out the demon and ending the spell. He didn't know that in leaving this reality he'd be giving up Jessica and his normal life at Stanford.

"_Hide?_" Sam pressed. "You're joking. Tell me you're joking."

"What?" Dean snapped. "Look, we don't even know if the spell _can_ be stopped. So instead of running off half-cocked and landing my ass back in the asylum from hell, I think that a nice, safe, _hiding_ plan is probably our best option. Besides, who's to say that things are any better in the other reality, huh?"

"It ain't that simple, kid," Bobby said softly. "There's things that need to be set right."

"Well I'm making it that simple," Dean said, firm and determined. "Looks like everybody here's got all their fingers and toes intact, right? World isn't ending, frogs aren't falling from the sky? All I needed was for you guys to get me out."

"And now you're going to do what, move to Canada and live like a fugitive?" Sam's face was twisted in a mask of complete and utter bewilderment and confusion.

"Dude," Dean corrected lightly. "If I was going to run anyway it would totally be to TJ."

"You're the one that said that things needed to be changed back," Sam pressed, unmoved by his brother's attempt at light-heartedness. "When you begged me to get you out, you went on and on about how Bobby Singer could change things back to the way they're supposed to be!"

"Yeah, well, I was drugged."

"So you don't want us to undo the spell? You seriously want to just live on the lam and let that demon and that doctor get away with torturing you?"

"No, Sam," Dean said through gritted teeth, the muscles in his jaws jumping. "What I _want_ to do is hunt them down and kill those two evil sonsobitches. But there's a bigger picture here that you're not seeing."

"Which is what?"

"Enough!" John barked. "Boys, can it! Dean, what the hell is going on here? You finally get everyone on board with the whole alternate reality thing, and now that you're free you just want to walk away and let the bad guys win?"

"It's not about what I want!" Dean shouted. "Christ almighty! It's not about what I want! OK?"

How could he possibly explain? All eyes were on him, watching him, waiting for him to explode or enlighten or turn into a toad. But he didn't have the answers. He only knew that he couldn't let them undo the spell. In this reality Sam had Jess, and a life, and a future. He watched as she took one of Sam's hands in hers in a comforting gesture, and caught a sparkling glint in the light. _Fuck me_.

"Is that a goddamned engagement ring?" Dean asked, pointing at Jessica's left hand, which was sporting what was obviously a diamond ring.

Sam sputtered, his cheeks flushing, but did not reply. Jessica's cheeks flamed crimson as well, but her bright blue eyes seemed to dim at Deam's outburst. This wasn't how they were hoping he'd react to the news of their engagement.

"All right, that's it," Dean muttered. "This discussion's over. Bobby, find a way to keep Walpole and that demon off my tail. We're not ending the spell and that's that."

"But Dean—" Sam began, but was interrupted.

"No, Sam. Things are better the way they are now. Now this is the last time I'm gonna say it – we're not undoing the spell. I'll slip under the radar and everybody else can go back to business as usual."

"But Dean—"

"I think it's time we took a breather," Cheryl chimed in. "Dean's probably starving, and I think everyone's nerves are probably pretty on edge right now. Besides, this conversation is just going around in circles and I for one am getting dizzy."

Dean felt the strong urge to offer to kiss Cheryl again. Her timing was impeccable. And with that, the conversation was abruptly cut short.

888

It was the best shower he had ever had in his entire life – better even than the massage shower in that dead realtor's house in Oklahoma. He luxuriated in the soft trickle of water as it cascaded in a steady flow over his weary muscles, washing the sins and pains and aches of his confinement at Golden Brooke away. It was the first shower he'd had in a private bathroom, without a nurse and an orderly present, in almost three months.

Now that he was alone he could take inventory of his own body, marvelling at how much weight he'd lost. He'd never thought himself even remotely overweight before, but now there wasn't an inch to pinch on his flat stomach, though thankfully he hadn't been reduced to boniness. There were no ribs showing, no bones jutting out. His normally golden tanned skin was pale and ghostly white from months of indoor confinement and drug abuse. It made the light spattering of freckles on his nose and cheekbones stand out. He was also in dire need of a shave. He ran his hands down the length of his now grizzled, lightly bearded jaw.

After his hair had been washed and his body thoroughly lathered and scrubbed to a healthy pink glow, Dean allowed himself to just lose himself in the steady stream, leaning with one arm against the tiled wall, his face directly under the showerhead as it powered down onto his face. A tremble had started up somewhere within him, accompanied by a sudden and overwhelming queasiness. He took several deep, steadying breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth, to try to dispel the nausea, and for a moment it seemed like it was working. Then, without warning, his stomach cramped painfully and then revolted entirely. He doubled over, one hand still clutching at the wall, as he vomited into the drain, watching as the soapy water foamed into the orange-yellow pile that had not long ago been his breakfast.

"Now that is just gross," he remarked with a groan, averting his eyes until the shower had done its job in rinsing the remains of the sickness down the drain.

He still felt shaky, and the nausea hadn't completely abated, but for now it seemed to have diminished significantly, so he took that as a good sign. Heaving a sigh at the thought of rejoining his rescuers in the world beyond his shower sanctuary, Dean reached for the tap and twisted it to turn the water off. It had begun to run cold anyway.

He took his time drying off. The full-body trembling had kicked up a notch, and his stomach was cramping again. Hot and cold waves washed over him, giving him just enough time to yank the toilet lid open for another round of vomiting. He knew he must be quite a sight: naked, trembling, and vomiting on a stranger's bathroom floor. It had to be withdrawal from the medication that was making him feel like ass. It would pass. He just had to ride it out.

Still, he was in no hurry to rush back downstairs, so he grabbed the towel and wrapped it around his waist and then sat on the floor next to the toilet, taking more deep breaths. The jeans and t-shirt that Sam had left for him were too far away to reach anyway, sitting as they were nestled snugly atop the counter next to the sink. He'd get them and put them on when the room stopped spinning and when he was more confident that moving wouldn't make him hurl.

_Knock. Knock_.

"Dean, honey, you ok in there?" Cheryl's voice called through the door.

"Yeah," he replied, but then had to try again because it came out as nothing more than a faint and inaudible croak. "Yeah, Cheryl. I'm fine."

"You need any help in there? Can I come in?"

His first instinct was to turn her away so he could be alone in his misery, but then he thought better of it. Hadn't she been one of the only sources of comfort for him when he'd been at his lowest? Hadn't she already seen him at his worst without turning away in disgust? Letting her in now certainly wouldn't be earth-shattering, wouldn't let her glimpse anything she hadn't already seen. And if he was honest with himself, he really felt like crap. And she was a nurse.

"Hang on," he said hoarsely, leaning forward on shaky limbs and crawling to the door with an outstretched hand to unlock it. The movement caused his head to spin and his stomach to roil in protest so he quickly scooted back to the far wall and pressed his back against its cool surface, tilting his head back and taking more deep breaths through flared nostrils.

"Not feeling so good, huh?" Cheryl asked quietly as she crept into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

"Not so much," Dean admitted.

"You want me to give you something?" she offered. "Maybe something to help you ride through the worst of the withdrawal?"

"NO!" he answered, a little too loudly and a little too harshly. "Sorry, no. No more drugs. I just need to –" stomach cramping up again "God – I just need to stop –"

He lunged for the toilet again and retched violently, his arms wrapping around the white porcelain bowl like a life preserver.

"—puking," he finished, spitting past the disgusting taste in his mouth.

Cheryl kneeled beside him and rubbed a hand comfortingly along his back as he began heaving again. The cramps were getting worse, the burning, nauseating need to vomit more insistent, but there was nothing left in him to throw up, so he dry heaved until the spasms abated. When he was done, Cheryl was ready with a cold cloth to wipe his face with and a glass of water to rinse the bile out of his mouth.

"Oh God this sucks," Dean said with a groan, prying his prone form away from the toilet and leaning back against the wall once again. It felt like his body was trying to destroy itself, burning, churning, spasming, trembling, and otherwise making him feel like he wanted to die.

"No wonder drug addicts become drug addicts," he added ruefully. "Withdrawal blows."

"Well most of the time they use methadone to help get over the symptoms," Cheryl pointed out. "Are you sure –?"

"I'm sure, Cheryl, thanks."

"So what happened downstairs," Cheryl said tentatively. "With you not wanting to change things back to the way they're supposed to be… It's about Sam, isn't it? He's happy here and you think that if things change back…?"

Dean pursed his lips and gave her a dark look.

"This is what got you upset at the hospital that day you had your meltdown?"

His lips relaxed and quirked into a grin.

"Just a ruse to get into your pants," he said, grinning wickedly. Even when he was pasty white and feeling like death he looked like a sex god, Cheryl thought, but swatted him in the arm to force him to be serious.

"You're trying to protect Sam," Cheryl said in a voice that was just above a whisper. "You'd risk being captured again, and going back to Golden Brook, or worse, just so that Sam can keep the things that he has now? Because he doesn't have them in the, uh, other reality. Does he?"

Dean shook his head and looked her straight in the eye. Even in his slightly fevered, chilled, dilated state of distress, those eyes could cut like cold green steel.

"No, he doesn't," Dean replied. "But this is my chance to fix things – to give him the life he's always wanted."

Cheryl laid a reassuring hand on Dean's shin, her fingers falling against a soft tangle of blonde hairs.

"I'm not sure it's yours to give," she said sadly. "Dean, from what Bobby was saying – wait, hear me out! – from what he was saying, there was sort of a butterfly effect to the world being changed with you, your dad, and your brother being removed from the hunting world. I didn't quite understand all of it, but it sounds like there's sort of a chaotic rippling effect happening. And if you don't change things back, hundreds of people will die, and that's added to the hundreds of people who're already dead because you were never there to save them."

"What?"

"Dean, you're going to have to talk to Bobby," Cheryl said, worrying her bottom lip. "There's more at stake here than just Sam's happiness."

She thought she saw his eyes glistening, but he blinked, took a deep though hitched breath, and his mask was securely in place.

"I can't believe you guys came," Dean said, changing the subject. "You and Greg and Bruce. I mean, I know you promised you'd help to sneak me out and everything, but I never thought you'd take on such an active role."

"What can I say?" she said with a shrug and a smile. "We were looking for a bit of adventure after watching you slay those vampires."

"Seriously Cheryl," Dean admonished. "You could lose more than just your job, you know. With the three of you missing, they're gonna know you helped bust me out. You could go to jail!"

"I know," she said, holding his gaze with hers.

"So why the hell'd'you do it?"

"Because other things matter more."

He tried not to smirk at her because she was throwing his own words back in his face.

"Other things matter more, Dean," she whispered, rubbing his back when the next bout of vomiting hit.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Notes: **

Here we are -- at last -- with an update on this beast! I think I've finally gotten past the crippling writer's block, and now freshly armed with inspiration for the next few twists and turns in this already twisted tale, I give you Chapter 15. Warnings for crude and inappropriate Dean humour.

* * *

Jessica Moore had never been timid. As a girl she'd been chatty, with long blonde pigtails and wide blue eyes that could charm candy from old ladies, could warm hard-hearted teachers into forgiving transgressions at school, and a friendly disposition that meant her friendships lasted a lifetime. And when the people she loved needed her, Jessica was always there. So when push came to shove, Jessica was proud to say she could stand up to almost anything.

But this? Well this was just a little too weird.

To say that her entire world changed in an instant might sound a tad melodramatic, but would nonetheless be the absolute truth. One minute she'd been resting peacefully on the couch in Palo Alto, dozing in front of the blue TV screen light waiting for Sam to come home. Then he'd dropped the bombshell that every girl dreams of when she meets the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with: he'd proposed.

Everything after that was like something out of a comic book. A mad brother locked in an asylum? An absent, once-alcoholic father and now unassuming mechanic? And then the_ conspiracy_. The damned conspiracy about the brother's confinement, which, as absurd as it sounded, turned out to be entirely true. And then the jailbreak. And then the plans to alter reality, and vengeance demons and mad scientists.

Now the world had been turned completely on its axis and seemed to be spinning in a different direction altogether. And Jessica found she had to hold on for dear life or she may simply be thrown off.

Sam was a jittery mess. When he wasn't bickering with his father about what they should be doing to keep Dean safe, he was pacing the room like a caged animal. At those times, Jessica would sneak up beside him and slide her hand in his, giving him a reassuring squeeze to calm him down. It worked like magic. At those times Jessica felt like she had the power to make the sun rise for Sam. And that made her feel good – made her feel strong.

But then the sounds of Dean's wretchedness from the upstairs bathroom would occasionally steal their way downstairs. The poor guy was sick as a dog and suffering cruelly from withdrawal symptoms, so Bobby and the rest of the assembled hunters were left to plot and plan in his absence while he puked his guts out upstairs. It was an agonizingly long wait, which inevitably ended with everyone calling it quits for the night and heading to their respective sleeping areas. John Winchester had opted to take the couch, so Jessica and Sam could share the single bed in the only remaining guest room upstairs. Jessica had fallen asleep to the sound of the steady breathing of her Sam, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he lay awake in the darkness, trying to let sleep take him.

The following day started out much the same as the one before it. Everyone milling aimlessly about, Cheryl sneaking in and out of Dean's room to check on his progress. The vomiting and cramping, she assured everyone, had mostly passed. He was now attempting to sleep off the last of the shakes and the killer headache, but would be feeling better – good as new, she promised – in a few days. Of course, she hadn't accounted for the sheer stubbornness of Dean Winchester, who emerged later that afternoon, fully clothed, freshly shaved and showered, and looking to all the world as though he were ready to head out to a party.

Someone, she didn't know who, had managed to procure for him a pair of jeans that were roughly his size, though they hung a little low on his hips. He wore one of Sam's t-shirts, which clung ever so slightly to his chest and arms, where his muscles were more defined than Sam's. Jessica could tell, though, that in four years' time, when Sam was Dean's age and his youthful frame had filled out in full adulthood, he would likely dwarf his brother in both height and bulk.

Dean was a beautiful man, there was no denying it. His features were striking, flawless, statuesque in their perfect symmetry. Jessica found herself privately searching for Sam in his looks, but there was so little resemblance between them, aside from the cleft chins and undeniable good looks. Where's Sam's eyes had that cat-like tilt, Dean's were round and expressive. Where Sam's were a soft, almost brown-hazel, Dean's were a mossy green. Where Sam was dark and angular, Dean was light with soft edges. When Sam smiled, his face dimpled at the cheeks; when Dean smiled the skin around his eyes crinkled. They looked night and day different, but at the same time had striking, rugged handsomeness that easily marked them as brothers. But then, she'd also taken a long hard look at John Winchester. There was no doubt that they came by their looks honestly.

"All right," Dean said conversationally, after everyone had taken a good and uncomfortably long gander at him when he joined them in the living room that evening. "So what have we got?"

He was still a little pale, but his eyes looked much clearer than they had previously. He was fully alert now that the drugs had finally left his system, and by the way he bounced on the balls of his feet, it was obvious that he was itching to _do_ something. Jessica also suspected that being sick and vulnerable in a house full of strangers hadn't sat well with him.

"Hey, kiddo!" John was the first to reply, walking on heavy feet toward his first-born and enveloping him in another bear hug. The stunned and somewhat pained expression on Dean's face had Jessica stifling a giggle.

"Jesus, Dad, what's with all the touchy feely?" He shrugged when his father reluctantly released him and stepped away. "I'm good. Never better."

"Are you hungry?" John asked.

Dean considered it a moment. "Maybe later. So – again – what have we got? You guys find anything yet about how to take care of a vengeance demon?"

"We got a few theories," Bobby replied hesitantly. "That is, if you ain't still dead set against reversing everything."

"I'm listening," was all the reply Dean was willing to offer. "Cheryl said something about there being some kind of ripple effect to this spell, and everything going to hell?"

"'Bout sums it up," Bobby said simply. "Damned spell created a rift. Universe is out of balance. Forces of darkness are on the upside of the scales…"

"And we're up shit creek? Super."

"So does this mean you're willing to undo the spell?" Sam asked. Jessica noticed that the muscles in his jaw were jumping with tension as he gritted his teeth.

"Maybe," Dean said. "But in the meantime, I need to know what we're dealing with here – what to expect."

"What do you mean?" It was John asking this time.

"Well," Dean said, directing his gaze to Bobby. "How does the vengeance spell thing work, exactly? And how confident should I be in this whole escape scheme?"

Bobby scratched his chin in thought.

"Vengeance demons are summoned," he explained. "The person wanting vengeance summons the demon and then makes his wish, I guess you could call it. The demon stays as long as is necessary to see that the wish is granted – doing whatever needs to be done to exact revenge – and then when the job's done the demon leaves and the one that did the wishin' pays up with his soul."

Dean swallowed hard.

"So this demon's still around," he said. "Because I'm not broken yet, the demon's still got a job to do, right?"

Bobby nodded.

"So does that mean it can just show up whenever it wants? Does it know where I am right now?"

"I honestly don't know, kid," Bobby admitted. "But my guess is you wouldn't be hard to find. And the demon wants to collect that soul, so it's gonna be on your ass to fulfill its part of the bargain."

"Fuck!" Dean hissed. "Ok, so what do we do to throw it off my scent? You got any charms or hoodoo trinkets to cloak me or whatever?"

"Already got it covered kid," Bobby assured him. "Tamara here made us up some charm bags that should cloak us from the demon."

"Should?" The look of obvious scepticism on Dean's face clearly showed that he was not reassured.

"Will," Tamara said confidently. "I've used this charm in the past when Isaac and I were hunting a demon a couple of years back. They work."

Dean nodded, exhaling the deep breath he'd been holding.

"And the demon?" he pressed. "Do we know yet how to stop it or exorcise it? How to reverse the spell?" He paused and worried his bottom lip. "I mean, if we do decide to reverse it."

"I think," Bobby said, "that that task might just fall to your daddy."

"What?!" both Dean and Sam exclaimed in unison.

But John perked up at the announcement, his mouth quirking into a satisfied grin.

"Great!" he exclaimed. "What do I have to do?"

"Hang on!" Dean said sharply, pointing an admonitory finger at his father. "You're not exorcising anything." He then turned a raptor's gaze on Bobby. "What the hell are you doing, telling him he can exorcise a damned demon? Are you nuts?"

"I think it's the only way to reverse the spell," Bobby replied. "And believe me, I wouldn't be suggesting it if I didn't think it was the only way. No offense John, but civies don't generally handle exorcisms very well."

"I don't care, I'll do it!" John insisted. His dark eyes were alight with a fire that was frightening to behold, revenge so close now he could feel it beneath his rough, calloused fingers like a finely spun silk.

"Uh-uh!" Dean protested. "No way!"

"I'm not asking for your permission, son," John replied gruffly. "And last time I checked, I wasn't taking orders from you."

Jessica watched as a series of different emotions warred in the mossy green depths of Dean's eyes. He swallowed convulsively, as if bracing himself to do something he'd never imagined himself capable of doing.

"All due respect, sir," he said, licking his lips nervously. "But the John Winchester I grew up with could handle a demon better than anyone. You…? Maybe not so much."

"You just tell me what I gotta do," John said brazenly, pointing a finger at Bobby as if commanding him, daring him, to point him in the right direction so he could shoot, punch, maim, and otherwise kill the evil sumbitch that had hurt his son. "Just tell me what I gotta do to send that demon the fuck back to Hell where it belongs."

The expression on his face was positively savage, and clearly brooked no argument.

"Why Dad?" Sam finally spoke up. Jess laid a hand on his shoulder to offer him some comfort, or maybe to steady herself. Maybe both. "I mean, why would Dad be the one to reverse the spell?"

Dean's eyes darted between his brother, his father, and Bobby.

The old mechanic shrugged.

"Far's I can tell, the spell's tied up with him," he explained as he readjusted his ball cap on his head. "That idjit doctor wanted revenge on John, so he summoned the demon to hurt his kid – you, Dean – like his own kid had been hurt. Sort of an eye for an eye kind of vengeance. So…." He paused and met Dean's expectant gaze. "Since John's the one the revenge is aimed at, John's the one that's gotta break it."

"Jesus," Dean sighed, huffing in frustration. "This seriously sucks out loud.'

"Ya got that right, kid."

"But here's what I don't get," Sam said, his brows furrowed in thought. "Why'd Walpole send the demon after Dean and not me? I mean, why lock Dean in an asylum and not me? Was that just random, or…?"

All eyes turned once again to Dean, who looked suddenly very uncomfortable.

"Makes sense he went after me, I guess," he said with a shrug, coughing uncomfortably and directing his gaze to something very interesting on the floor. "I mean, I was hunting with Dad while you were away at Stanford. I was probably around while Dad crossed paths with him."

It sounded plausible, but the sudden rush of colour to Dean's cheeks in what was unmistakably a blush made it clear that there was something being left out. After he was finished speaking, Dean lifted his head with a half-hearted attempt at a grin. Jessica could feel Sam's shoulder muscles tense up beneath her hand.

"And?" Sam asked pointedly. "What aren't you telling us, Dean?"

"Nothin', Sam, just let it go." He averted his gaze for a moment and then met his brother's stare with something like a challenge.

"You know why he went after you, don't you?" Sam pressed. "He told you?"

Dean sighed.

"Yeah, he told me."

"And?"

Jess noted that everyone was watching Dean again. She doubted anyone had stopped, except maybe to spare the occasional eye sweep in Sam's direction.

"Let's just say he doesn't just blame Dad for what happened to his daughter," Dean replied darkly, evasively, but never taking his eyes off his brother.

Jess watched as Sam stared at his brother in complete bewilderment for a full six second count, his eyes squinting in confusion, hi slips slightly parted as he searched for the answer in Dean's cryptic reply. Then Sam's own expression darkened, his mouth shut tightly, his lips pressed into a firm line, and he smirked suddenly and snorted a laugh.

"You slept with her," he accused, huffing his disapproval. "You slept with the doctor's daughter?" His tone was accusatory and incredulous at the same time.

"Of course I slept with her!" Dean snapped, irritated. "Dude, the chick was hot – had legs up to here, man! Name was… Gwen, I think? I think…" He raised his eyes, as if searching his memory, and mumbled a list of names under his breath as if counting off all the girls he'd slept with whose names sounded like Gwen.

"God, you're such a dog, Dean…" Sam said under his breath.

"Yeah, whatever." Dean rolled his eyes. "You can knot your panties all you want Sammy. But since I'm not a puritanical tight-ass when it comes to sex, I'm not going to bother losing any sleep over bangin' some random chick like four years ago."

A few of the other hunters in the room chuckled, and Jess saw that John was stifling a laugh at the brotherly banter, but the tension between Sam and Dean was palpable. And that made Jess just the slightest bit nervous. There was definitely some history there, she could tell. As far as Sam knew, Dean had been in an asylum for the past four years – even though they rationally knew that this entire reality was a fabrication, and that Dean had in fact only been incarcerated for about three months. It made her wonder how much of a player Sam's big brother had been before Sam went to Stanford and this whole thing began, because it was obvious that Sam's disapproval of Dean's philandering ways ran deep. She found it hard to reconcile that the Dean of this reality (the one that technically didn't really exist) and the one of the 'other reality' didn't really match up in Sam's mind, and she wondered how much of Sam's attitude toward his brother was warranted, and how much was just part of the demon's twisted fiction. Dean's own unabashed admission of having 'banged some random chick' led her to suspect that he'd been a heartbreaker in every reality. Still, it was confusing as hell keeping track of it all in her head.

"No wonder Walpole wanted to have you chemically castrated," John suddenly cut in, smirking.

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

Dean visibly blanched, the little colour in his pale cheeks leeching from his flesh as he went from pale, to white, to green in a matter of seconds. Jess watched as his eyelids fluttered slightly, a hand rising to his mouth to ward off the sudden and impending nausea. And then without warning he lurched in an awkward, hunched turn, so that his back was facing the assembled group, and promptly projectile vomited on the carpet. He remained hunched over, breathing deeply through his nose, his shoulders hunching as another spasm hit him and he threw up again, spitting and gagging.

"Oh God, I'm sorry!" he said miserably, waiving a hand in warning to stave off the well-intended attentions of John and Sam, who were at his side in an instant to offer relief.

"Dean! Dean – I'm sorry, kiddo!" John pleaded, just out of reach. His face looked so drawn, his eyes pleading for some kind of reprieve from the fatherly torment of having to watch his child suffer. "I'm such an ass – I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have said that!"

Dean panted and heaved again, spilling out another round of vomit.

"S'okay," he breathed, sighing wearily. "They didn't even…" He gagged again, but held it back. "Didn't even have me on anything like that, far as I know…" And then he vomited again. "Fuck! I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me! I _know _they didn't chemically castrate me or whatever."

"You know?" Bobby asked, his eyebrows arched so high they disappeared under the shadow of his cap.

Dean smirked.

"Didn't stay away from the nurses after all," he said slyly, giving his dad a reassuring pat on the arm before closing his eyes and attempting to do some deep breathing through his nose.

From somewhere across the room, Greg coughed uncomfortably, and Jess turned to see the three hospital staffers standing near the fireplace. Greg was scratching awkwardly at the back of his head, trying to look anywhere but at Dean, and Cheryl's face had blushed to several shades of red. Bruce, for his part, appeared to be completely oblivious.

"Anyway," Caleb said. "Are we done with the sex talk now? Because I think we need to figure out our game plan, here."

888

One of the first decisions that everyone could agree upon, though no one particularly liked it, was that the rather large group would have to split up. They were sitting ducks together, and would be able to accomplish more if they went their separate ways to take care of all the various different tasks that needed taking care of. It didn't help that the news stations were all broadcasting regular warnings about FBI's now most wanted Dean Winchester's escape from Golden Brooke Asylum on just about every station on the radio and on television. That demon bastard had planned this well, that much was certain. Dean wouldn't be able to go very far without being recognized and reported to the police, which meant he'd have to remain hidden, wherever he went.

He watched the discussion in silence, continuing to breathe through his nose to still the nausea and to calm the shakes that had taken up residence once again in the marrow of his bones. He fucking hated this – hated feeling like his body was going to fail him or, worse yet, attack him at any given moment. The random bouts of puking were way past being old, and the shakes made him feel weak and light-headed. And damnit, he needed his head in the game or he was going to have his ass caught and thrown back into the asylum. And he knew he'd rather die than go back there. In fact, a dark, morbid voice in the back of his mind said that he might be better off dead in any case. Might be better for everyone, in fact. But then, it might just be the drugs talking (or the lack thereof). Dean had never been the suicidal type, even at his worst. Self-destructive and reckless, hell yes! Suicidal? Not so much. He wasn't selfish enough to be suicidal. Suicide would mean actively choosing to abandon Dad and Sam, and he could never do that, no matter how worthless his own life sometimes (most of the time) felt.

But no way in Hell was he going back to Golden Brooke. It would kill him.

Dad and Bobby were going to stick together to take care of the preparations to get rid of the demon. Tamara and Isaac were thanked for their help and dismissed from their watchful duty, having another hunt to take care of that required their immediate attention anyway. Caleb had opted to accompany Cheryl, Bruce, and Greg on their sojourn into hiding, just in case the demon came after them in its search for Dean. This left Sam and Jess to keep Dean hidden while Bobby and John took care of business. And Dean didn't like it one bit.

"So we're supposed to do what, exactly?" Dean asked tiredly, one hand draped over his eyes as he leaned into the couch. "Go do some sight-seeing while you guys save the day?"

"'Bout sums it up, yeah," Bobby said innocently.

"Sounds right," John agreed, grinning his dimpled grin and looking remarkably like a gruff, dark version of Sam.

"This plan sucks," Dean groaned.

"Yeah, well, it's gonna save your ass," Bobby snarked, "Plus a whole lotta others. So quit your grousin' and get ready to hit the road, kid."

"After you eat something," John amended, pointing an admonitory finger.

Dean raised his arm from his eyes and gave his father a pained look.

"You volunteering for puke clean-up duty?" he queried, one eyebrow raised.

"Gotta eat somethin', kiddo," John said, his voice softening. "If not now, at least in the next few hours." Then he gave Dean a hard look and added, almost as an afterthought, "That's an order."

Dean smiled in spite of himself. That was the Dad he'd been missing, and _damn_ if that didn't make Dean all kinds of pathetic. Who else but Dean Winchester would long for the drill sergeant to tell him what to do so he could feel like things were normal? Who else but Dean Winchester would feel happy when the weepy sap of a Dad who actually admitted he loved him in this reality paled in comparison with the gruff, surly, commanding asshole that was John Winchester? Dean couldn't deny that he was seriously whipped, and right now he didn't even care. Fact was he had more faith in his Dad's abilities as a hunter than anything else in this whole world – in this reality or the one he'd come from. And if anyone could save him from this nightmare, Dean knew his Dad was it. And after spending months on the road searching for him, Dean was now lapping up any and all traces of the John Winchester he loved like some kind of Pavlovian dog. Yup – he actually longed for the father who gave those easy commands to follow: _"Sit, Dean. Stay. Good boy."_ Yup. He was all kinds of pathetic. Possessed by an angry dead psychiatrist or not, Sam so had him pegged when he'd hurled those insults at him at Roosevelt Asylum.

Dean took advantage of the quiet while everyone bustled around the house, packing up their few belongings and scurrying about the kitchen to prepare a last meal before everyone went their separate ways. Sam and Jess were in their room upstairs, no doubt sharing a private moment before embarking on this new adventure of keeping Dean hidden on the road somewhere. Dad and Bobby were going over maps at the dining room table. And Dean found himself suddenly alone on the couch, one arm still draped lazily across his forehead, while the world around him buzzed with activity. He had almost drifted off to sleep when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

He jumped nearly out of his skin and tried to hide his obvious start, failing miserably.

"Sorry, man," Bruce apologized, taking a seat next to Dean. "How you feelin'?"

Dean sighed.

"Lousy," he admitted. For some reason it was so easy to be honest with his Golden Brooke friends. All those walls that he normally kept in place to keep up his image of the ruthless, unbreakable hunter seemed non-existent around these guys. They'd seen him at his worst and had done their best to help build him back up. That had to count for something.

"It'll pass," Bruce assured him. "And, uh… Everything else is okay? Like, uh… Up here?" He tapped at his temple.

Dean smirked.

"You mean am I about to break down cryin' like some chick?"

"Something like that," Bruce said with a chuckle. But his face fell and his expression turned serious.

"Look, I know you're playin' it cool, man. But what happened to you down there… I know it was bad. So, if you ever wanna… talk about it…"

"Oh God, shoot me," Dean moaned, covering his face with his arms dramatically. "We are so not having this conversation. You want me to open up to you, at least buy me dinner and get me drunk first."

"Yeah, okay," Bruce replied reluctantly. "No Dr. Phil moments here. Just wanted to make sure you were doin' all right."

"I'm fine," Dean said, a little too quickly. But there were niggling thoughts eating at his brain, and somewhere inside was the overwhelming urge to ask the question he'd rather gouge his own eyes out than ask. He didn't really want to know, did he? _Fuck_. Bruce had just said that what happened to him in the dungeon was bad. Did he know? Of course he knew. And of course the problem was, Dean _didn't_ know. He couldn't remember.

"Um… Bruce?"

"Yeah?"

Dean pulled his arms away from his face and sat up a little straighter. He was going to do it. He was going to ask. Oh God, he didn't want to know, but he needed to. He looked at his friend briefly, catching his eye, and then looked straight ahead.

"When I was down there… I uh… Well I don't really remember much. Just like… flashes?"

Bruce didn't say anything, but nodded for Dean to continue.

"Right… So, I think that maybe there was someone… in my cell? Someone…" _Fuck_. He _didn't_ want to ask.

But he remembered the smell of stale sweat, and the feel of whiskers against his face and scraping along his neck. And he knew he shouldn't be fucking asking this now because he was about to hurl all over the couch. But he had to know. He was Dean Fucking Winchester and he had to know.

"Do you know if… I mean, you were there, working on that floor… Do you know if…" He had to clear his throat to continue. "Do you know if something… happened?"

God, his voice had actually hitched at the end, hadn't it? Sounding like a strangled sob…

Bruce's hands were wringing in his lap. _Oh God_. This couldn't be good.

"Dean… I'm so sorry!" he said, his face crumpling with guilt. "I don't know who let him in! I swear, Ted and I covered the floor pretty much the entire time you were down there – at least at night, anyway. I went to the john and someone had let that sick fuck Marcus Brewer in your cell."

Marcus Brewer… Dean had heard about him through the Golden Brooke grapevine. He was some kind of serial rapist/murderer. Liked to lure in young street kids and rent boys and torture them. Had racked up a pretty high body count by the time he was arrested. And this was the guy – Dean's nighttime visitor – who'd been haunting his sleeping and waking dreams in violent flashes that stabbed at his brain? _Yup, definitely going to throw up again._

_Oh God…_

"Did he..?" Dean coughed and cleared his throat. "Did you see if he…?"

And that was as much as he could say, as far as he could go, because saying anything else out loud just might make him crack right down the middle and shatter like glass.

"No," Bruce assured him, and his voice was so firm, sounding relieved almost, that Dean found he had to look at him to see in his eyes if he was actually telling the truth. "No, Dean, he didn't. But if I hadn't got there when I did…"

"So you stopped it?" Dean thought maybe he might choke. It was hard to breathe.

"Yeah," Bruce said, softening his voice. "I swear, Dean – I tried to keep an eye out for you. I was only gone for maybe ten minutes, if that! And by the cursing that sicko Brewer threw out at me once we dragged him out, I know he didn't get to…" he coughed awkwardly. "He may have sampled a bit off the appetizer tray, but he never got to the main course."

Dean actually barked a laugh and then promptly gagged. And then he started to laugh, really and truly laugh. He could feel tears welling in his eyes at the insanity of the last three months, and that just made him laugh even harder. This was all just fucking nuts. He thought maybe he was hysterical, because he was nearly in a fit of laughter, doubling over and cackling like a madman at the sheer enormity of it all. Being held prisoner in a nuthouse was definitely a hard pill to swallow: but the madness in the dungeon, with the drugs and the hallucinations and the random groping session, were like something straight out of a horror film. He hadn't wanted to think about it – had tried so hard _not_ to think about it – but the fear, the implication, the memory of those touches, the smell, the feel, were all too much to ignore, and ample ammunition to set his imagination into overdrive. Deep down, he'd known it couldn't have happened. He couldn't have been fucked by another guy, because he'd have known. If nothing else, he'd have felt different afterwards. But he knew, with certainty, that there had been no unwelcome throbbing pains _down there_, and if he'd been buggered there most certainly would have been. Drugs or no drugs, Dean would've felt the effects of _that_. He was so relieved he could have cried.

"So," Dean said at last, trying to stifle his laughter and wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "Guess I'm still as much of a tight-ass as Sammy then, after all, huh?"


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Notes:**

God, I am so sorry for the ridiculously long wait! It's unforgivable and inexcusable, and I offer nothing but my humblest apologies! Hopefully this chapter and those to follow it will make up for the neglect. :)

* * *

The cramp in his leg was really starting to bother him, but he knew that now was really not the time to be fussing about such things. With every crash and every bang and every screeched curse, Mike Hogarth's leg cramp faded a little further into the recesses of his mind. He had never seen anyone so angry, and that was saying something, considering he'd been working at this shit hole for over seven years. He'd seen patients in the full fury of psychotic episodes, murderous rages, foaming at the mouth and screaming bloody murder. He'd seen pasty white faces with vengeful black, blown-pupilled eyes boring holes through his soul with _the look_ that, if it could kill, would take out the entire State with more power than Hiroshima. And this? This was worse.

Dr. Walpole had been ranting and screaming and destroying his office for the past hour and a half, and though Mike knew he had someone in there who was on the receiving end of his ire, he had yet to figure out who the unlucky scapegoat was. Whoever it was, he or she either wasn't replying, or was being quiet enough to not be overheard through the door. Either way, Mike was just glad to be on the outside of this particular conversation, because he had no desire, whatsoever, to be a witness to Walpole's wrath.

"We had a deal!" Walpole's voice shouted for what must have been the hundredth time in so many minutes. "We had a fucking DEAL! He was supposed to be _mine!_"

Mike held his breath as the muted someone made some kind of reply.

"Don't you dare tell me to be patient!" Walpole screeched. "I've already waited three fucking months, and yet that smug little prick still isn't broken! And what's worse yet, now he's ESCAPED!"

The sound of chair legs scraping against the floor met Mike's straining ears.

"You're damned right you'll get him back!" Walpole was positively spitting now. "You'll get him back, and I will break him myself! I don't care if I have to tear his fucking brain in half, I want Dean Winchester as broken and empty as my Gwen!" He paused in his rant and then continued in a cold voice. "Yes well, forgive me if I don't have the same unwavering faith in your abilities. The forces of Hell are obviously overrated, if this is the kind of crack job you do."

This was just beyond weird, Mike thought. What the hell was the doctor talking about? Dean Winchester's escape must have pushed the poor bastard over the edge. He was raving like a lunatic. He'd been in an agitated state since the news had spread that the cocky young punk had escaped, and no one could even begin to imagine how he'd managed to pull it off, even with the help of the three wayward staff members who were coincidentally AWOL.

_Everyone's losing their fucking minds_, Mike thought. _Stress of the job_. That Cheryl had always had a soft spot for Dean – everyone knew it. But Greg and Bruce? Mike really hadn't seen that coming. Maybe the guy was trading off blowjobs and quick fucks in his cell for his freedom or something: it was the only reason Mike could imagine anyone would be willing to jeopardize their careers, and their freedom, for a lowlife piece of shit like Dean Winchester. They were all out of their goddamned minds, either way.

"I don't care what you have to do to get him back!" Walpole's voice suddenly shouted, low and dangerous. "You bring out the cavalry – you do what you have to do, but get him _back!_"

There was movement from inside the office, and more scraping of chair legs against the floor.

"Yes, well, see that you do," Walpole intoned, his voice calmer and quieter now. "I'm prepared to live up to my end of the bargain. Just see that you fulfill yours – or you'll get _nothing_ from me."

Mike was really straining to listen now, but try as he might, he couldn't hear the elusive reply.

"Really?" Walpole's voice held the slightest hint of good humour. "Well then, this should be interesting. And you're sure they can root them out? [_Indistinguishable muffled sounds_] Yes, well, I suppose they would go to ground. And if they've got nowhere left to go to… But you don't know who they are…. [_More indistinguishable muffled sounds_] Yes, of course. Knock 'em all down. Eventually you're bound to strike paydirt. There can only be so many hunters in the continental US, after all."

Now Mike thought maybe he was losing his mind. Hunters? Had the old quack actually said hunters?

"See that you do," Walpole's voice said, suddenly very close to the door. "I want him caught and I want to crush him, just long enough to see the look on that bastard John Winchester's face. Let him know what it feels like to have a child lost and broken as a casualty of his crusade."

And then the door was opening, and Mike was trying very hard not to look like he'd been listening.

888

"You look after your brother," John said sternly, giving his shaggy-haired son a rib-busting hug and then several manly pats on the back for good measure.

"Yeah Dad," Sam assured him. "You know I will."

Dean stood and watched the bizarre role reversal with his mouth hanging open in complete shock. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. _At all_. Dean was the older brother. It was his job – _his job_ – to look after Sam. It was never supposed to be the other way around. Yet another piece of evidence that this reality blew bile-crusted chunks.

"All right ladies," Dean taunted, his voice dry and expressionless. "Enough with the tears and the hugs and the emo-out-the-wazoo. Time to hit the road."

John paused before his eldest son and gave him a thorough once-over, his eyes taking in every detail as if he feared he'd forget them if he didn't put them to memory. His eyes were bright with dewy, unshed tears and they crinkled at the corners with a smile, his bearded cheeks dimpling. Dean thought maybe now might be a good time to crawl in a hole and die, or at the very least, the ground could do him a favour and swallow him. Of course, he could never count on the earth swallowing him up when he truly needed it. Now was no exception.

"We're gonna fix this," John said thickly. "I know I let you down more times than you could count, but I'm gonna make it up to you. I'm gonna make this right, Dean."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean replied, trying very hard to sound unemotional in spite of the waves crashing over him. "Quit your blubbering and give me a hug, ya big girl."

They clapped their arms around each others' shoulders and held tight for a few moments. Dean allowed himself to take comfort in it. Hell, he needed it. Sam and Dad might be different in this reality, but they sure smelled the same, and they loved him the same, and right now that was all that mattered. Dean inhaled the scent of his Dad's aftershave and was pleasantly surprised to find that the familiar gun oil smell lingered somewhere on his skin. He'd been preparing weapons with Bobby earlier that morning – getting a quick crash course in Supernatural weaponry before heading out on the quest to stop the vengeance demon. Marine or mechanic, drunkard or hunter, Dad still smelled the same.

"You'll call," John said when he'd withdrawn from the hug. It wasn't a question.

"Yes sir," Dean replied. "We'll check in. And you too, right?"

"Yeah, Ace. We'll give you regular updates."

Dean nodded. "Good."

"Take care of yourself, bud," Greg said, clapping Dean on the shoulder. "And whatever you do, don't get caught."

"Really not my intention," Dean admitted with added emphasis.

"Well we wouldn't want to have lost our jobs for nothing," Bruce added, also giving Dean a hearty clap on the shoulder. "'Cos you know, there's a career I'll _die_ without."

Dean was at a loss for what to say. There were no words of thanks that could come close to conveying how truly grateful he was for all of their help and sacrifice. Without them he'd have lost his mind at Golden Brooke long before anyone had made any attempts to bust him free. Their combined efforts to keep him sane, and their constant vigilance, had kept him going when he'd wanted to give up. Thank you didn't even come close.

"Well actually," Sam's voice cut in. "If all goes well, you guys will still have your jobs when everything gets switched back to normal – when reality is set back the way it's supposed to be. Dean will have never been an inmate at Golden Brooke, and you'll have never needed to help bust him out."

"Aw, man!" Bruce whined. "Don't say that! I was taking this as my excuse to get the heck out of that crap-ass job!"

"Tell you what," Dean said jovially. "If we do manage to set everything right, and I get back to my own version of normal, I'll come find you and make you quit your job. I'll full-on Tyler Durden you and threaten you at gunpoint. Sound good?"

"Deal," Bruce said, clasping Dean's hand in a firm grip and giving it a hearty goodbye shake.

"And you," Dean said, turning to Cheryl, his nurse-saviour, his scrub-clad mother hen and lover. "I still owe you a ride in my Chevy."

She blushed, and Dean couldn't help but notice that she looked a lot younger when she wasn't in 'nurse mode.' Standing in the driveway in the full light of day, the sun beaming down on her medium brown locks, she looked more like a young woman and less like the stern matriarch that he remembered from the asylum now that she was in normal jeans and a t-shirt. It was strange how someone so small could be such a presence, could have so much power. But there was no denying that she'd been the boss, even with most of the doctors, when she was in her element. And when she was nursing, she was definitely in her element. Now she just looked like a woman: a scared, sad, but hopeful woman. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks still flushed.

_Aw, what the hell_.

Dean took her face in his hands and pulled her close, pressing his lips to hers in a kiss that he knew was goodbye. This wasn't like with Cassie. This wasn't passion, or love, or even necessarily attraction – at least not in the way that Dean was used to. But this was something more. This was skin calling to skin, blood calling to blood, soul calling to soul. Cheryl had pulled him from the abyss, and a part of him needed her to keep him anchored, to keep him grounded, when he felt his rudderless ship about to drift astray. And now he was abandoning her to her fate, and it felt wrong somehow.

He smiled into her mouth when she lost her breath in his kiss. _Still got it, Winchester_.

"You be good," he instructed her, his forehead pressed to hers as he continued to cup her face in his large hands. "No more bangin' guys you think are crazy." Then he grinned wickedly. "Unless it's me."

Cheryl snorted a laugh that sounded a bit like a sob and then wiped a few stray tears from her eyes.

"Don't do anything stupid," she warned him. "Get yourself home in one piece."

"Yeah," Dean replied absently, pulling away at last.

_Home_. Now there was a funny concept. It would be nice to get back home, if Dean had a home – which of course he didn't. All he had was his car, and his Dad and his brother. That was his home. And right now, Dad was missing and didn't want to be found, and Sam was barely hanging on by a thread, what with Jess's death still fresh and bleeding in his heart. Time hadn't yet healed it, and if Dean was honest with himself, he wasn't sure it ever would. Losing Mom had almost killed Dad, and had wounded him irreparably. Dean remembered what his father was like before the fire. He'd been full of life and smiles and hugs. He'd been warm and open and happy. But when Mom died, it was like a part of him died too. Maybe losing Jess had killed a part of Sam that he'd never get back…

Which, of course, brought Dean full circle to his big ass problem at hand. Could he allow them to change reality back to the way it's supposed to be, knowing that it would be a death sentence for Jess, knowing that it would tear his baby brother's heart out? Was it really even possible to change things back? And if it was, did Dean even have a choice? Could he choose Sam's happiness over the lives of all the people the Winchesters had saved in the last twenty-two years? Did Dean have the right to make that kind of call?

Thinking about it made his stomach churn and his head hurt.

"Well, all set," Sam suddenly announced, clamping a hand on his big brother's shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. "Ready to hit the road?"

Dean sighed and squinted into the sunlight. God he'd missed the sun on his face. Was probably pasty pale like a freak from three months indoors, caged and drugged into mindless numbness. He was so ready to hit the open road and leave this horror show behind him.

"Fuckin' A," he replied with gusto, his trademark grin feeling genuine for the first time since he'd woken up in that white room.

888

It was humiliating. Shameful. An indignity not to be suffered in silence. Dean Winchester did not do backseat passenger, especially not with his baby brother and his hot girlfriend taking the lead in the front seat. And especially not in a crappy Pontiac Sunfire. Fuck he hated those things. The car had absolutely no muscle – didn't even rumble a little bit when Jess put the keys in the ignition and started her up. And it most definitely didn't purr like his baby. It was small and felt cramped, and zipped too easily from left to right whenever Jess adjusted the wheel even the slightest bit. It made Dean feel queasy, and he so was not some waify chick who got _carsick_. No fucking way.

The car ride was awkward to say the least. Neither of the two in the front knew what to say to their passenger in the back, and so all conversation felt forced and painfully casual, like they were trying too hard to be cool around the young man they still couldn't help but feel was crazy. Jess seemed more at ease than Sam, who, when he did speak to Dean, tended to talk slowly, as if his big brother were hearing impaired, or very, very dim. It was annoying beyond description.

"So we were thinking," Sam said about two hours into their drive to nowhere. "Maybe we could stop somewhere and grab a bite to eat. Sound good?"

"Sure, Sammy," Dean replied absently, staring out the window at the landscape as it flashed past in a colourful blur. "Sounds good."

Sam paused and frowned, turning to face his brother in the backseat.

"Well are you hungry?" he asked. "Because you didn't eat much at breakfast, and then you threw it up anyway, so..."

"Christ! I said yes, Sam," Dean barked, sighing in irritation. "Let's go get some food. I'm freakin' starving, okay?"

"Well why didn't you say anything?" He was frowning even deeper now, his bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly, tightening with the frown. If Dean didn't know any better, he'd say he was about to get a glimpse of Sam's patented bitchface. Yep, there it was. Dean couldn't help but grin.

"Because I wanted to put some miles behind us, Sammy," Dean explained, his grin widening. "'Sides, I didn't even realize I was hungry 'til you mentioned food." Then added as an afterthought. "Feel like I could eat a whole freakin' cow."

Sam grinned.

"Good," he said, his dimples returning as his scowl disappeared. "That's good, Dean."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

This time when Dean sighed, it was with contentment. Maybe he was home after all.

Jess turned off at the next exit, where they promptly pulled in to the Big Stop and found themselves a table. Dean's mouth watered just looking at the menu. Real frickin' food – or at least, diner food, he thought wryly. But not hospital food. And oh man, they had bacon double cheeseburgers. And frickin' coke and beer. Dean idly wondered how much of a scowl and a lecture he'd get from Sam if he ordered a beer. It was only 11:30. Barely lunchtime.

A very pretty waitress with strawberry blonde hair sauntered over to their table. She smiled warmly at the three customers before her, her eyes noting the entwined fingers of the taller young man and the beautiful blonde girl sitting next to him, and then resting on the gorgeous guy sitting across from them.

"Can I take your order?" she asked, tilting her head to the side to take a subtle perusal of the merchandise in front of her.

"Well you sure can, sweetheart," Dean replied with an eye-twinkling smile. "Can I have a coffee – black?"

"Sure thing," she said, her heart positively fluttering at the sound of his honeyed voice.

"And I'll have the bacon cheeseburger platter," he went on.

She took his order down on her notepad and promptly took off to leave the order with the kitchen, with a breathless, "Coming right up!" as her departing shot.

Dean chuckled at the bewildered looks on Sam and Jess's faces.

"What the hell?" Sam exclaimed, staring off after the waitress in mild amusement and shock.

"What can I say, Sammy? I can't help it that this face drives the ladies to distraction."

Jess snorted into her glass of water and raised an eyebrow.

"Well at least you're modest," she teased dryly.

Dean shrugged.

"Whatever. Modesty's for losers."

When she continued to eye him with those raised eyebrows, Dean leaned forward and gave her a playful smirk.

"Right," he said, allowing his eyes to rake over her form meaningfully. "As if you don't know you're hot. You can sit there and pretend to be bashful and modest all you want, but your mirror doesn't lie, Smurfette. And neither does mine."

Jess blushed deeply and giggled – then sobered at the withering scowl Sam was shooting his brother – and tried her best to look sombre and serious.

"Poor Sammy here will never know what it's like to be this pretty, right Jess?" Dean teased, grinning like the Cheshire cat and winking playfully. "The big gangly freak is no Quasimodo or anything, but he sure as hell ain't in your league."

Sam leaned forward as if he were about to make some kind of protest, but Jess reined him in with a tight squeeze of his hand.

"Just ignore him, Sam," she said lightly. "If I were looking for pretty I'd be dating someone named Samantha. Big and broad and handsome and sexy is just _fine_ by me."

Dean chuckled, shaking his head in wonder. Jessica was a seriously cool chick.

"You do know that his real name is Samantha," he jibed, for which he was promptly given a sharp kick in the shin by his cranky but grinning brother.

"You heard her, Pretty Boy," Sam snarked, smirking. "Jess here's only interested in a real man."

"So she's still looking then?" Dean taunted. "Makes sense."

"You're just jealous because the only tail you've gotten in ages is a nurse in a nuthouse," Sam replied, and then immediately froze at his own words. He'd done that thing – that dreaded thing – where playful banter suddenly died after the painful insertion of his foot into his mouth. What the hell had he been thinking, taunting Dean with _that_?

Dean's smile faded, his face paled, and a flash of something like pain and shame shone in his mossy green eyes for a fraction of a second. It was a visible struggle for him to resurrect the crumbling walls of his devil-may-care facade, an act that was as painful as it was humbling to witness.

"Dean... I..."

"Don't worry about it, Sammy," Dean said immediately, his mouth stretching into a tight smile that came nowhere close to reaching his eyes, though it was obvious he tried. "Give me a pool cue, a couple of beers and a crowded bar, and we'll see what we can't do about that."

The waitress returned and put an end to any further awkwardness, her own dismay at having left the majority of the table without first taking their orders plenty to distract them from the mini-drama that had just unfolded.

"Don't know where my head is," the young waitress stammered apologetically, trying her hardest not to look at Dean as her cheeks flushed red.

She took their orders and bustled back to the kitchen, uttering more frantic apologies for the neglect a few minutes ago before she left. Dean watched her go with interest, his head tilted to the side as he took in the sight of her swaying hips. He had always been one to appreciate the backside of a woman.

"Tell you what, Sammy," he said absently, still looking in the direction of the kitchen, as if seeing their cute waitress through the wall. "A beer says I can bag her before we leave this joint."

888

The ride from the diner was silent. Sam was red-faced and visibly flustered, while Dean was smiling in the backseat, his face a perfect mask of contentment and smugness, looking like the cat that ate the canary, and Jess felt entirely out of her element. It was not that long ago that she had first learned that Sam even had a brother, and then it was to find that said brother was locked up in a nuthouse for being a lunatic. All the subsequent truths about demons and alternate realities had been enough to throw her for a loop. But brotherly banter that leads to brotherly angst? She was completely unprepared for that.

"It's a beautiful and natural act, Sammy," Dean said sagely from the backseat, grinning like a loon when his brother's cheeks reddened at the memory of catching him and the pretty waitress going at it in one of the bathroom stalls.

"This is going to be one of those things that we never talk about and pretend never happened, okay?" Sam said tightly, closing his eyes and breathing heavily through his nose, as one would do while trying to breathe through nausea to ward off an impending vomit-attack.

"Are you kiddin' me?" Dean chuckled, feigning indignance and shock. "That kind of encounter is not the kind you want to forget. First of all," he raised his index finger to list off this important point, "I deserve an award for sealing the deal in like, record time, man. I had her at 'coffee.' And second," he added a second finger to the tally, "she had a tongue ring, Sammy. A tongue ring! That's the kind of memory you keep yourself warm with on dark and stormy nights."

"Oh GOD!" Sam choked, whining. "I'll pay you to stop talking!"

Dean just cackled and leaned back in the seat, resting against his arms folded behind his head.

Though it made her blush a little, Jess was honestly a little relieved that Dean had gotten lucky at that greasy spoon of a diner. The poor guy had been through hell, and though he was being a bit of a dog about it, she had to admit that he deserved a distraction, even if it was a quick lay in a public bathroom. Lord knew he wasn't out of the woods yet, what with the FBI now after him, and a demon who may or may not be keeping mystical tabs on him. The truth was he could be caught at any moment, and though no one had voiced it aloud, they all knew that the next time Dean was caught there would be no busting him out a second time.

Thinking about him being captured again made Jess feel nauseous, so she tried her hardest to keep her mind on other things. She watched the solid and occasional breaks of dotted lines along the highway as she steered resolutely ahead, to where she didn't know, and tried not to think about what would happen if they failed. If John and Bobby failed. She honestly couldn't imagine what it would be like to be locked up in a place like Golden Brooke, but the haunted and wild, lost animal glaze in Dean's eyes when they'd first rescued him had been enough to let Jess know that it had been traumatic enough. Dean was one tough cookie, and hid his pain well. _Like a champ_, she thought ruefully. But there were fine cracks in the polished veneer of his kick-ass-big-brother mask. She could see them every now and then in the ghosts that danced behind his eyes, could hear the howls of his soul screaming remembrance of tortures past in the sighs that escaped his lips, and even in the occasional whimper when he dozed off. Dr. Walpole may not have managed to break him, but he'd scarred him. He'd damaged him by striking at the most tender parts of him. And like a good, brave soldier, Dean marched forward, stalwart and true, with a joke on his lips and a smile on his face.

Yes, she was glad he'd found warm arms and welcoming thighs to distract him back at that diner. Truth be known, Jess rather admired her soon-to-be brother-in-law. And if meaningless sex with willing partners helped to bring his confidence back, helped to put the natural swagger back in his step, helped to bring the post-coital flush to his pale cheeks, then she thought he'd damned well earned it. Sam was just being a prude because he'd had the misfortune of overhearing the sexcapades, and had even managed to catch a bit of the visual show as well. She couldn't blame him for being irritated – he'd been traumatized, after all. But times like this weren't about keeping up appearances, at least not in the way that Sam had always cared about. When they had a moment alone, she'd make him see that Dean needed to let loose and be human so that he could _feel_ human again.

She was deep in that train of thought when Sam's phone buzzed insistently.

"Yeah?" he said immediately, the phone ready and in his hand before the second ring had finished. "Hey, Dad. What's the – oh. _Oh_. Crap!"

He paused and gave Jess a frantic, deer-caught-in-headlights look.

"Well what's he saying?" [Pause] "How? How did they know he was a hunter?... Fuck!"

Dean was stirring in the backseat.

"Sammy...?" he mumbled blearily from the backseat.

"Well what the hell are we supposed to do, Dad? Where are we supposed to go?"

"Sammy?" Dean pressed, more awake now.

"Fuck! And all of his books were inside?" Sam demanded, frustrated, dismayed, and angry all at the same time. "Well if the FBI found Bobby, who's to say they haven't been to Jim's place, or Caleb's?..." [Pause] "Hell, they could be on our asses right now, Dad!"

"Sam!" Dean called sternly, really not liking being ignored.

"Right. Yeah, I know. You're right, I'm sorry. So how's Bobby?" Sam huffed a silent laugh at whatever John Winchester replied on the other end. "Yeah, okay. We'll keep him safe and out of sight, Dad. Don't worry. Okay. We'll let you know when we've stopped for the night."

And with that he clicked the phone shut and pursed his lips, his brow furrowed deeply in thought.

For his part, Dean was positively leaning into the front seat.

"Well?" he demanded. "What the hell was Dad sayin'? Have the FBI nabbed Bobby?"

"No," Sam assured him, heaving a sigh of combined relief and irritation. "Just raided his house. But this means they won't have access to any of his books or talismans or anything else that might have been, you know, useful for us stopping this damned vengeance demon."

Dean swore loudly.

"Well that's just fucking fantastic," he snarked. "So what do we do?"

"Keep driving," Sam said simply. "We won't be safe visiting any of those hunters you mentioned – Dad says that some of Bobby's contacts have been raided by the FBI as well. Looks like they're making a series of raids on hunters' houses. Leaving you with no ground to go to."

"I really, really hate that sonofabitch, Walpole," Dean growled. "That's it – next time I see him, I'm kicking his ass."

"Get in line," Sam said darkly.

"Nuh-uh, little brother. I get first crack."

Sam considered it for a moment.

"We could tag-team it?" he suggested, his face stretching into a wicked, dimpled grin.

"Deal," Dean replied, beaming.

"So we'll lay low," Sam instructed. "Find some cheap, out-of-the-way motel and hole up for the night, then take off on the road again first thing in the morning... Just keep moving and, I don't know, hope that buys Dad and Bobby enough time to figure this out."

"Sure, okay," Dean said somewhat evasively. His eyes were looking somewhere off into the distance. "Except I think we need to make a quick stop on our road to nowhere."

"Oh yeah?" Sam queried. "Where?"

"Lawrence," Dean said with a sigh, scrubbing wearily at his face with his hands.


	17. Chapter 17

"Stop the car!"

Hot. It was too fucking hot, and everything was spinning, and his head felt like it was full of white fuzz and his hands were sweating but freezing cold and tingling and he needed to get out of the car right the fuck now.

"Pull over and stop the fucking car!" Dean croaked, reaching for the door handle in an attempt to pull it open even as the Sunfire continued to zip along the highway. If they didn't stop now he'd be splattered along the shoulder of the road and at this moment he really didn't care. He had to get out of the car.

"Dean what's wrong?" Sam asked, twisting in his seat to observe the suddenly stark, translucent pallor to his big brother's skin. Jess was already in the process of pulling off to the side, easing her foot onto the break in an attempt to bring them to a smooth and non-jerky stop.

Dean was shaking from head to toe and panting with trembling breaths. He couldn't steady himself, no matter how badly he tried. Every nerve in his body was jumping wildly as his body shook, the slightest movements of the car sending frantic messages from his brain to his fingers to his toes – lightening fast cross-wired signals of motion and movement that did not compute.

"Be sick," Dean muttered as they finally rolled to a stop, flinging the door open before the vehicle had actually come to a complete stop and spilling out of the car onto his hands and knees.

He crawled away from the car on shaky, trembling limbs, stopping at the gravel and grass line near a ditch, his whole body heaving with ragged breaths. He just needed to breathe through it: in and out. In and out. Just stop moving. Please just stop moving.

He could feel the rough gravel beneath his fingers, the dusty dry dirt sticking to his sweat-slicked palms as he clawed at the earth, trying to ground himself. With all four limbs planted firmly on the ground, panting like a dog in the hot summer sun, Dean tried focusing on the fact that he was stationery. Not moving. See? That's solid ground beneath you and it's not freakin' moving.

But his head was singing a different tune. The world spun around his head, fast and hard, blood pounding in his ears with an odd buzzing sound. He actually felt his face flush, that cold chilly feeling settling in his hands and spreading along his flesh in goosebumps of doom.

There was no holding it in. Dean vomited loudly, violently, his back arching as his body fought to twist itself inside out, expelling what had been an enjoyable lunch.

"Dean, you okay?" Jess asked timidly.

Dean wanted to turn his head to offer some kind of reassurance to his brother and his girlfriend, but even attempting to turn his head to the side caused the whole world to tilt and spin dizzyingly. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on his breathing.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Everything was too fast, too heavy, too intense. His chest was heaving as if he'd run a marathon, his heart pounding violently and fit to burst. And the trembling in his whole body was so strong he wondered how he was even holding himself upright. It felt as though his arms and legs would collapse beneath him at any second.

"Dean?" Sam pressed.

Their voices were far away, probably near the car. Dean could picture them standing close together, wanting to give him his space, wanting to allow him some privacy. Or maybe they wanted to be as far away from the puking man as possible because – hey – puking isn't always a spectator sport. Sam had always had a weak stomach and a terrible gag reflex. And that Jessica with her Barbie Doll prettiness: she was probably a lightweight where grossness was concerned.

"Minute," Dean mumbled. He opened his eyes and squinted at the patch of dirt between his hands, staring at it to give himself something to focus on other than the tilt-a-whirl planet zooming too fast around him. "Just gimme a minute."

It was torturous, and humiliating, being hunched over like some kind of Egyptian slave prostrate on the ground before the gods of Nausea, begging for release with each nostril-flared breath, but eventually the dizziness subsided. After Dean had puked a few more times for good measure, just to be sure he was empty and hollow enough to not have anything left to puke up, the nausea receded, crawling back like a shadow from the rising sun. It slithered beneath his skin, releasing its vise-like grip on his insides and allowing him to breathe normally again.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Dean pushed himself back on trembling arms and sat back with his knees folded under his butt.

"Well that was awful," he mused, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and grimacing at the taste of bile in his throat.

"Hey Sammy, we got any water in the car?"

Sam was like a little dog with a bone, so eager to do its master's bidding, tail wagging excitedly at the prospect of doing something that would earn it a treat. Within seconds he'd retrieved a bottle of water from the trunk, snapped the cap off and placed it in his brother's still trembling hands.

"Better now?" Sam asked.

Dean took a tentative sip, swished it around in his mouth and then spat it out.

"Think so," he admitted. Then he took a real sip and savoured the cool trickle down his throat. "Man, that was weird. It was like havin' the super-spins without bein' drunk. Sucked ass."

"I think that was vertigo," Sam explained. "Some of the anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications you were on have some uh... side-effects up to a week after you stop taking them."

Of course they did, Dean thought bitterly.

"That the worst of it?" he asked hopefully, but by the scrunched up, pained look on Sam's face he could tell right away that it was hardly the worst of it.

"What else?" he asked sharply.

Sam shifted nervously from one foot to the other but did not reply.

"What else?" Dean pressed.

"You might not even experience the symptoms," Sam warned, then sighed. "But some of the anti-depressants you were on caused withdrawal symptoms up to a week after cessation of treatment, including, uh... vertigo, nausea, vomiting, light-headedness, 'after-shocks'... um... erectile dysfunction."

"Erectile dys-_what_?" Dean demanded, incredulous. "No fucking way man. No way. Uh-uh! This is so not happening!"

He clamoured gracelessly to his feet, stumbling as he stood up to his full height, and stalked around the roadside, kicking angrily at the dirt and muttering curses under his breath.

"Sonofafuckingbitch, Sammy!" he finally howled. "I'm done! I want you to reach right back here," he pointed at his back, "and tear off the big old Universal Sign that says 'Kick Me!' Okay?"

"Dean..."

"Or better yet!" he ranted, his voice getting louder and more shrill with each word, "Let's travel a little lower, because Walpole and his fucking demon were aiming to go below the belt – pulling out all the fucking stops. So let's start with removing the big, giant, colossal sign right here," he pointed at his ass, "that says '_Insert Here_'!"

Jessica was giggling, though she bit her top lip hard in an attempt not to. It was just that, even when he was unravelling, when he was coming completely undone, Dean had a certain wit, a certain crude humour that, when timed just right, could make the most dire situations seem comical.

"I fail to see the humour here," Dean said darkly, his eyes set straight ahead at Jess in a dead, empty, angry half-lidded stare, his lips slightly pursed together and his jaw jutted forward just the tiniest bit.

"Dean, come on man," Sam placated. "Just get back in the car and we'll go to Lawrence. We're not far now. Maybe a couple hours."

"I can't," Dean snapped, sulking. "I'll throw up."

"Is my driving that bad?" Jessica teased, her attempt at levity failing miserably.

"How the hell are we supposed to do this, Sam?" Dean demanded as he folded her arms across his chest. "Freakin' teleport?"

"Ooh! Or Apparate, like in Harry Potter," Jess suggested.

"Not helping, Jess," Sam quietly muttered out of the side of his mouth.

"Or Dean could drive," she suggested.

Dean had been about to retort but paused, his lips still parted as he considered this newest option. With his eyebrows raised in thought and his mouth hanging open, Dean looked the perfect picture of Brainless-Hot-Guy. _God, you're such a blonde,_ Sam thought, and was glad he'd only thought it because Jess would have slapped him if he'd been stupid enough to say it aloud.

"That could work," Brainless-Hot-Guy said at last, closing his mouth and pushing out his bottom lip in exaggerated 'Let-Me-Think-This-Over' face.

"Don't strain yourself," Sam teased wryly.

"Fine!" Dean retorted with a smug smile. "I'm driving. Jess, you wanna be my wingman?"

"Of course. Owner of the car gets automatic shotgun," she agreed.

Now it was Sam's turn to be put out.

"Wait, so _I'm_ in the back? I've got the longest legs of anyone here!"

Dean barked a laugh as he sauntered towards the driver's side of the car, stumbling only twice on shaky legs and pulled the front door open.

"Suck it up, Sammy," he said with a feigned sigh. "Little brother sits in the back. Big brother's drivin' stick with the hot blonde."

And the asshole had the audacity to waggle his eyebrows suggestively.

888

Dean didn't know what the hell had possessed him to come here, and now that he was here, he was definitely rethinking the logistics of his plan. He wondered how many kinds of crazy it would make him look if he told Sam and Jess that they were to turn around and head somewhere else. The doorbell wasn't going to ring itself and it flaunted him in _Alice in Wonderland_ notes of 'Ring Me' and 'Push Me.' Dean stared at that damned white button with sudden hatred, because this was a stupid fucking idea and he'd dragged them here for nothing and he wanted so very badly to turn around and leave right the hell now.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't say why, but this felt like the end of the road. Dean wasn't sure if it was because they were in Lawrence again, with every horrible thing Lawrence carried with it and in it, or if the timer on this ticking bomb of doom with Walpole's vengeance demon was just running out, but he felt intuitively that everything was going to come to a head soon. And he still hadn't made up his mind on what he was going to do. He still had reservations and worries and in his stupid insecurity he'd conjured up this brilliant idea as some kind of remedy.

God he was a moron.

"Dean?" Jess queried gently. "Do you want to head back to the motel? We can always come back tomorrow if you're... If you wanted to maybe do this later?"

Dean shook himself, rolling his shoulders and clearing his throat in a very manly way.

"M'good," he said, reaching out with determined fingers to just _press the fucking button_.

Which was, of course, Missouri Mosely's cue to open the door and startle the crap out of him.

"Lord almighty child!" she bellowed in that deceptively sweet voice of hers. "You gonna stand on my porch, leave an old woman waitin' around all day?"

Under different circumstances, in an alternate universe, Dean would have brushed the entire incident off with a cocky smile and some kind of witty retort, but this was Hell-verse and Dean's nerves weren't up to their usual ten. Being at the end of the line, out of options, with no one else to turn to, was a lot like being freakin' lost. And he didn't have a map or his car or any weapons yet that he could use to fight this evil.

So he gaped at her like a fish out of water, no words on his lips, no sign of his usual bravado, no megawatt smile to cover for all the little things inside that needed masking. And it was all made that much worse because he knew this woman could look right inside him – could see it all – and he couldn't even pretend to hide it from her, even if only for his own sake.

"Oh, honey!" she said softly, taking the hand that was still stupidly extended toward the doorknob in hers and running her chocolaty smooth fingers along his knuckles. "Don't you be lettin' my bark scare you, boy. Trust me, you'll know when you've been bit and you ain't been bit yet."

She smiled kindly, searching his eyes with her own big brown lamplights. Dean watched as her smile faltered, watched as she laid a reassuring hand on her own chest, her breath hitching in her throat.

"Oh my," she whispered. Then she quickly darted her eyes to Sam and Jess, eying them each up in turn, before returning her deep, scrutinizing gaze to Dean.

"Well I guess you better come inside, then. Looks like we have a lot to talk about."

Dean could see that Sam and Jess were both hesitant, their eyes falling to him with questioning, pleading looks on their faces. Neither of them had any clue who Missouri was, and it was obvious that they were confused and slightly unnerved by the familiar way that the woman had spoken to Dean. Sam, especially, was confused because he'd grown up in Lawrence and knew with certainty that he'd never seen this woman before in his life.

"Well, come on then," Missouri's voice called from inside. "We don't got all day!"

They followed her inside in an awkward shuffle, Dean taking the lead and Sam taking the rear, his hands held protectively on Jess's shoulders. She leaned back slightly into his touch and Sam smiled. It made that twinge in Dean's gut twist and knot.

When they'd finally seated themselves on Missouri's sofa in the sparse little parlour that she used to do her psychic readings in, the hefty psychic made a point of watching them all with the strangest expression on her face. She watched Jess with the most familiar, matronly smile on her face, as if she'd just met a kindred spirit and life-long friend. Sam she quirked a brow at, her face twisting in a brief grin and then slackening altogether into an unmistakable frown. Then at last her eyes alighted on Dean, returning once again with that stare that seemed to look through him.

It was strange and unnerving. He couldn't help but wonder where the hell the loudmouthed Sam-lover who'd torn a strip off him every chance she could get the last time they were here had gone to. Where were the threats to hit him with a spoon? Where were the snide remarks about him being stupid? Where were the cold, angry glances and snarky comments about him being an amateur when he was only trying to do his fucking job? And why the hell wasn't she saying anything now? He felt himself squirming in his seat.

"Dean..." she said, and that soft, sad, pitying voice was back again. He watched almost in horror as she shook her head sadly and exposed all his lies, all his weaknesses in that single gesture.

He cleared his throat and immediately averted his gaze to the coffee table.

"Look, uh, Missouri..." but found he didn't know how to finish that sentence.

"My brother thought you might be able to help us with something," Sam offered. He turned to Dean and offered a commiserating smile, hoping to lend his brother the strength to say what he needed to say or ask what he needed to ask. Because Sam had no clue.

"We met before?" the plump woman asked Dean, tilting her head to the side and then suddenly gasping in shock. "I can see clear as day on your face that we did." She righted her head and frowned curiously. "And you really don't like me." Her large cheeks dimpled with a mischievous grin.

"More like you don't like me," Dean corrected wearily. "And I get that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed or whatever, but if you could just hold off with your fantasies about spoon bondage fun, 'cos I really need your help."

Missouri Mosely's brow furrowed and her frown returned. Dean watched, transfixed and mildly afraid as the frown deepened into a full-on scowl.

"I like you fine, Dean Winchester," the woman corrected sternly. "What I don't like is the mask you were wearin' last time you walked in here. Your prerogative to leave everything locked up tight inside, I suppose, but there ain't nothin' I hate more than a liar."

"I'm not lyin'!" Dean defended hotly, desperately.

"Not this time," she amended as she eyed him sharply. "No, not this time." And her voice was so thoughtful, almost far away. "Someone sure has done a number on you. Rubbed you raw and spread you thin."

Dean thought he might scream or throw something or growl in animalistic rage because this was not how this conversation was supposed to go. He'd come for help, for answers, not to have the tattered remnants of his own carefully constructed layers peeled back, leaving him even more raw and exposed than he'd been in the asylum. He felt hot tears prickling behind his eyes and had to choke back the lump in his throat.

"So wait," Sam said hesitantly, "You remember Dean? You remember meeting him from before?"

That was a good question. Dean blinked back his tears and eyed the psychic suspiciously.

She nodded, hesitant at first, her look far away again.

"It was fuzzy at first," she admitted. "I could hear my own voice in your brother's head_. 'You think I'm some kinda magician?'_" she repeated breathily. Then her eyes met Dean's and they were wide as saucers. _"'And you were one goofy lookin' kid.'_"

Dean felt his breath hitch.

"It's not right," Missouri whispered. "None o' this is right..." She turned and looked around the room, at the people in the room, as if she was seeing them for the first time. "Oh Lord, everything's _wrong!_"

"Dean...?" Sam's voice was tight, scared. He was holding Jess's hand in a reflexive squeeze.

"Somethin' terrible's after you, boy," Missouri said seriously. She was looking at Dean with real fear in her eyes, and seeing that look on the mouthy old broad's face made his blood go cold in his veins.

Dean gulped convulsively.

"After me, as in after me right now? Like this second?" He hoped his hands weren't shaking again.

"Honey, it's on you like a bloodhound chasin' a fox," she intoned. "And it ain't never gonna stop 'til it breaks you."

"Is it... can you see...? Is it close?"

She scowled again.

"What did I say about lookin' like a magician?" she snapped, but then softened. "I can't see it, but I can feel it. It's got its eyes on you, and it's evil... and hungry."

"Can it see him now?" Sam pressed, sounding as panicked as Dean felt. "Does it know he's here?"

Missouri shook her head.

"I don't know," she admitted, her hand back on her chest to steady her own rapidly speeding pulse. "I don't know... But it's gonna find you, Dean. It's gonna find you and it's gonna tear your mind apart if you don't set things right."

And suddenly Dean felt he couldn't sit any longer. In a rush he was on his feet, pacing along the carpet as three sets of eyes trailed after him, watching and waiting for him to react.

"Well what am I supposed to do?" he finally blurted. "I can't fight this thing until Bobby figures out how to stop it!"

"You don't do anything," Sam warned. "Dad and Bobby have got it covered, Dean. They're taking out this demon. You're going to stay with me and Jess. We'll protect you. I'll protect you."

It would have been comforting if it weren't so absurd. This Sam, protecting him? That was rich.

"Oh yeah, college boy?" Dean taunted. "What're you gonna do when the demon comes calling, huh? You gonna throw the book at it? Tell it to stop in the name of the law?"

"Boy, don't make me –" Missouri snapped.

"—hit me with a spoon," Dean finished. "Maybe later." He turned his raptor's gaze on Sam and scowled. "You're not goin' anywhere near this demon, Sam. You hear me? If it comes calling, you and Jess run as far and fast as you can and you don't look back."

"What?" Sam scoffed. His eyebrows were lost somewhere in his shag of hair as he raised them in incredulity. "Sure, Dean. I'll just leave you to be tortured to insanity and just go back to Stanford like nothing ever happened."

"That's right, smartass," Dean returned. "That's exactly what you're gonna do."

"Screw you, Dean!"

"Get in line!"

Sam stood and shook his head in frustration.

"I can't believe we're having this conversation again, Dean!" he barked, and Dean secretly hated how deep Sam's voice got when the kid yelled. It was a harsh reminder that he wasn't a little boy anymore, that his baby brother was all grown up and man-sized, which, you know, should have been obvious enough from the fact that he was so seriously man-sized.

"Stop makin' me repeat myself by doing what I freakin' say and we won't have it again," Dean replied nonchalantly.

"Guys, this isn't helping," Jess pointed out softly. "And we're wasting time."

"Time you ain't got," Missouri added, nodding sagely.

Dean felt like he was losing a battle here – a battle that was being waged on all fronts. He wanted to save Sam but on every turn was being told that he couldn't. This life, this wrong altered life, where sweet innocent Jess was alive and Sam was happy, wasn't meant to be and couldn't last. But Dean wanted to preserve it somehow. If he could only pluck Jessica out of this life and bring her back to the real world with him... And then there was the fact that they were running out of time, that fate and the forces of Hell were conspiring against him, moving things along to ensure that he stayed trapped here in this nightmare. Dean was afraid of failing Sam as sure as he was afraid of anything, but he was also beginning to despair that he might not even be able to save himself – which he'd been told was his only option. What if they lost? What if Dad and Bobby couldn't right this? What if Dean was caught again and was locked up? What if this couldn't be changed, couldn't be fixed? Everyone that had helped him to escape would go down like a row of dominos, their lives in this sucky-verse forever altered for the worse now because they'd helped him.

"Dean, honey, look at me," Missouri demanded, suddenly in his space and holding his face in her hands. "Look at me!"

Dean did as commanded, trying not to sway on the spot at the enormity of the weight on his shoulders.

"This is not your fault," she said calmly, quietly, soothingly. "None of it. It ain't on you, whatever happens. You got pulled in by the undertow an' the people that love you are tryin' to pull you back to shore."

"But what if I pull them down with me?" he whispered, unable to stop the words from tumbling from his trembling lips.

"Sometimes the tide is too strong," she admitted, whispering now too for his benefit. "And when you battle with the ocean there's always a good chance you're gonna drown."

He hated himself for the tear that snaked its way down his cheek.

"But Dean," she said, "you're a good swimmer. Maybe the best. And let's not forget you got a big sturdy ship with one helluva Captain at the helm."

Dean snorted a mirthless laugh.

"Dad."

She smiled dimpled cheeks at him.

"Never met a more stubborn man than John Winchester."

Dean sniffed and cleared his throat.

"Listen, uh..."

"You can't give Sam the life he lost," she whispered, cutting him off. Her voice was so low that Dean was sure the other two couldn't hear her. "Or that beautiful girl over there." Her eyes were filled with such deep sadness and regret, but underlying it all was determination. "It wasn't meant to be – not like this. Not at this price."

"Could be," Dean offered half-heartedly but Missouri was shaking her head.

"They had their time together, Dean. It's over now. It's the past. But your brother? He needs you, now, helpin' him pick himself up and move on. He needs his brother to protect him from the evil that touched him twenty-two years ago in his nursery."

"What...?"

"You have a job to do, boy," she said sternly, "and it ain't here."

And for the first time since this whole horrible mess started, for the first time since waking up in that white room, Dean knew that he didn't belong here. He needed to get back to Sam.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Notes:**

Just a warning: this chapter is _all over the place_. It's about to hit the fan real soon, and there were some things that needed to happen first. We've got some bonding, some plotting, and lots of worry.

And for those of us who need it, some nekkid Dean thrown in for good measure. Bon appetit!

* * *

"I'm bored."

"I heard you the last seven times," Jess teased as she pulled away from the mirror briefly, tweezers still in hand, to peer at the prone Winchester on the bed closest to the door. From her vantage point in the bathroom all she could see of him was his legs.

"Well I'm even more bored now than I was then," he pouted. "What're you doin' in there anyway?"

"Preening," she replied, yanking a stray hair from her brow and squinting closer to the mirror to look for any wayward friends in need of plucking.

"You mean you don't wake up looking hot?" Dean griped from the other room. "You're shattering my illusions."

"Had to happen some day. I hate to tell you this, but I also do number one and number two in here sometimes."

She heard the sound of Dean shifting on top of the blankets.

"Hey, you've obviously got me mixed up with Sammy. He's the resident prude of the Winchester clan. You know he swore up and down, right up until the time he left for Stanford, that he didn't masturbate?" Dean snorted a laugh. "Forgetting of course that we shared the same freakin' cell in whatever sleazebag motel we were stayin' at for eighteen years, but hey! Sure thing, Sammy."

Jess could hear him chuckling at memories of times past.

"What the hell is taking him so long, anyway?"

"Maybe he needs a break from you," she shouted, grinning at her own reflection when he didn't immediately reply.

"Isn't that how he met you?"

Jess did not like the bitterness in his tone, and if he'd been standing she was sure his shoulders would have slumped with his latest remark. _Well enough of this_, she thought. Moping and bitching was not her style, and she had no tolerance for it in others, and certainly not in the brave little toaster in the next room, who'd already been through enough already. Squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath, she marched out of the bathroom and stood at the foot of Dean's bed, towering over him in what she hoped was an intimidating pose. He lay on his back staring up at her quizzically.

"So is this it?" she asked, challenging.

"Is this what?" He squinted at her in confusion.

"The 'real you'? 'Cos for a while there I thought you were like this... unbreakable superman type, slaying vampires without access to your trusty weapons cache and withstanding torture for months without even breaking a sweat. But your little brother going away to college is the straw that broke the camel's back, I guess. That was the earth-shattering event The Great Dean Winchester couldn't handle?"

She watched almost in amusement as his squint turned into a frown.

"Are you mocking me?"

She rolled her eyes with exaggerated care. "Well duh!" When he huffed a mirthless laugh she continued. "Dean, your brother didn't go away to college to get away from you. He went away to college because he had dreams."

Jess was at least glad to see that she had his undivided attention, those captivating green eyes of his locked sharply on hers.

"I don't..." she stumbled, "I don't know what it was like in the real... well, where you came from? But I'm guessing some things were at least partly the same. Like, Sam went to Stanford and met me... And I'm guessing that means he left hunting. Left you and your father."

Again Dean huffed, averting his eyes with a turn of his head and a wide, almost pained smile. Then he draped an arm lazily over his forehead, shielding his eyes casually, though it was obvious from the way he played at being casual that he was feeling tense and sullen. The topic of Sam leaving was not an easy one for him.

"It wasn't because of you," she assured him, softening her voice a bit. "You're his brother, Dean. Sam loves you. It's just..."

"Oh God, shoot me!" Dean moaned, yanking the pillow out from under his head and tossing it at Jess like a puffed up missile. "Can we stop with the touchy-feely crap? I think I'm gonna hurl again!"

"Touchy feely?"

"And I'm hungry!" he griped. "Where's Sam with our damned food?"

"Touchy feely?" Jess pressed, arching an eyebrow. "I'll show you touchy feely you emotionally repressed egomaniac!"

"OW!" His half-grunted, half-yelped exclamation of pain when all one hundred and thirty pounds of Jessica Moore's weight suddenly impacted with his stomach, knobbly knees grinding into his belly as she pounced like a cannonball on top of him.

"Jesus you're heavy! Oof!"

The wind was knocked out of him anew as she attempted to crawl off of him, flopping onto her side on the bed so she could more easily kick at him with her legs.

"Suck it up, Superman!" she crowed, flailing strong-thighed legs as she attempted to kick him off the bed.

"What the hell are you doin', you blonde Amazon freak?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she panted. It was getting harder now to shove at him with her feet because he'd begun to shove back. "I'm kicking you off the bed because I'm sick of your damned moping!"

Dean wasn't a talker, that much was clear. He was a physical being: he experienced life through his body, both the pleasure and the pain of it. It was probably why he got so much out of sex and food. Emotions weren't his thing. So he responded to physical things, physical threats, physical contact. He was like one of those medieval knights who proved truth with his body. Well fine! Jess was going to reach him on his level.

"I am not moping!" His indignant retort was followed up with an impressive foot-shove that sent Jessica sliding backward along the bedspread.

"Sorry," she taunted, jabbing him in the gut with her goes. "I guess my invitation to the Pity Party was lost in the mail then!"

"Screw you!" he barked and blocked a kick that came dangerously close to his groin.

She smirked.

"You think I won't hit a girl?" he asked archly.

Her smirk widened, her eyes glinting.

"You think I won't _humiliate_ a girl?" he amended.

And that's when Jess gulped, realizing too late that maybe she'd bit off more than she could chew.

888

"Damnit!" Bobby hissed, snapping his cell phone shut with an angry hiss.

John peeled his weary frame away from the beat-up old Camero and peered intently at his new hunter friend.

"What is it, Bobby?"

"We gotta go," Bobby replied curtly. "Let's grab our stuff and shag ass. Now."

"What?" John barked. "Why? What about the stuff we were going to get for the ritual –?"

"There ain't time!" Bobby began pacing nervously. "What we got's gonna have to be enough."

John narrowed his eyes dangerously, his voice coming out low like gravel crushing slowly under tires.

"What the hell is going on, Singer? Is it my boys? Are they okay? Is it Dean?"

The grizzly old mechanic pulled the faded ball cap off of his head and ran a weary hand over his brow, replacing the cap with a heavy sigh.

"We gotta get to 'em, John."

"What is it?" John demanded, grabbing the man by the scruff of his shirt and pulling him into his personal space. "What the fuck is happening?"

"Omens, that's what," Bobby snarked, snatching himself free of the angry ex-marine's grip. "Demonic omens. I been keepin' track of some signs startin' on a few months now, an' I think I picked up some patterns... Called a friend – she knows a fella who's kinda a genius with computers, if you can keep him sober long enough – and she just called to say that there are signs of demonic activity in Lawrence, Kanzas."

"Lawrence." John positively gulped.

"Lawrence," Bobby repeated.

"It's gotta be the vengeance demon," John mused, pinching his lip between his fingers. "It's after my boys! It's after Dean!"

"More'n likely," Bobby agreed. "Which means we gotta haul ass, ya idjit."

John leapt to action as though he'd been zapped with a thousand bolts of electricity, springing to the passenger door and pulling it open with a loud, plaintive creak. He threw his whole body into the car and fastened the seatbelt with an angry thrust.

"I don't understand this, Bobby." His voice was a growl. "I thought those charms Isaac and Tamara gave them were supposed to shield them from the demon. How the hell did the demon find them? How does it know they're in Lawrence?"

Because no matter how much John would have liked to convince himself that maybe this wasn't their demon, that maybe his boys were in fact safe, he couldn't deny that Lawrence immediately spelled trouble. If the demonic omens were appearing anywhere else John might have conceded that it could be some other demon, up to some other evil plans. But not in Lawrence. Lawrence was where the Winchesters were born – where Mary had died. Dean would have gone to Lawrence, gone back to find his roots, maybe, and if the demons were there that could only mean that evil had found him.

"I don't know," Bobby admitted. "Maybe they lost them hex bag charms. Or maybe the demon's got some other way of findin' 'em. But it looks like they're closin' in. And we got more'n eight hours of road ahead of us and not one minute to spare."

888

Sam slid the keycard through the swipe panel while holding a leaking paper bag that was dripping someone's Chinese food under one arm and balancing a cardboard cups-holder with brim-full Cokes in the other. The delicate balancing act was made all the more difficult when he tensed up at the sound of pain-filled squealing coming from inside. Kicking the door open, he launched into the room, dropping the sopping bag of food with a paper-tearing thud and careening to a halt at the most bizarre and inconceivable sight he'd ever seen:

Jess lying face-down on Dean's bed, her arm twisted behind her back, with Dean perched dangerously on top of her, pinning her in place even as she kicked with impossibly long legs at his back, thumping him between his shoulder blades as she squirmed and squealed.

"What the _hell_ are you doing, Dean?"

Dean didn't even have the grace to look ashamed or embarrassed. If anything, he looked determined, proud, and kind of fierce.

"You're hurting my arm!" Jess's muffled voice shouted through the pillow.

"Good!" Dean taunted, shoving her face deeper into the pillow with his free hand.

"Dean! Get off of her!" Sam ordered, thundering.

"No way!" Dean scoffed. "Dude, she kicked me in the jewels!"

"Can't... breathe..." Jess's voice moaned quietly through several inches of cotton batton.

Smirking, Dean released her head, allowing her to gasp a breath of air as she tilted her head back.

"Kick his ass for me Sam!" Jess shouted, earning her another face-shove into the pillow.

"I said get off her Dean – now!"

Dean just looked at Sam like he had three heads.

"Nuh-uh, Sammy. Your girlfriend here doesn't play fair."

Sam set the drinks down on the table and stalked towards the bed.

"What. The Hell. Are you doing?"

"Jesus, will you calm down?" Dean scoffed. "We're only playin'."

"Can't... breathe..." filtered weakly through the pillow again. Right on cue, Dean released her head. Jess gasped for breath and was promptly smothered to the pillow again.

"Your girlfriend attacked me, man," Dean said incredulously. "One minute she was goin' all emo on me talkin' about how much you love me, and the next she's on top of me, kickin' at me with those freakishly long legs of hers." He paused and smirked. "Personally I think she was just trying to cop a feel. I mean, I know I'm irresistible but _come on!_"

"You wish!" Jess shouted defiantly through the pillow.

Sam huffed loudly.

"All right, you proved your point Dean – now let her go. I mean it!"

Dean looked like he was about to argue, pursed his lips in search of a witty rejoinder, paused, and inevitably shrugged. Casual.

"Whatever," he said at length, springing up from the bed with cat-like grace and speed so that Jess couldn't land a single slap, hair-pull, punch or kick in retaliation. "I'm freakin' starving anyway. Where's the food?"

All three heads turned to the leaking bag of discarded Chinese food on the floor.

Despite its ill treatment in Sam's haste to rescue his damsel in distress, the Chinese food was still edible. Some of the flavour from the Mu Shu Pork had leaked into the Kung Po Chicken, but Dean really was starving, having thus far been 0 for 2 in keeping down any of his meals that day. He was hoping the third time was the charm because his hip bones were starting to stick out a little and he'd noticed the tight, slightly pinched look of his face.

"So what're we up to tonight then?" Dean asked through a mouthful of Szechuan noodles.

Sam chewed on it, both literally and figuratively, considering their options as he chomped contentedly on his dinner, and then swallowed, freeing himself to reply.

"Thought we could order a movie or something," he shrugged. "Maybe play cards...?"

"Most hotels you can order movies that are still in theatre," Jess added brightly.

"Yeah. We can take it easy," Sam went on. "Be ready to head back to Missouri's in the morning..."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"Why I thought you'd be less of a grandma in this reality than the other one is beyond me," he said tiredly. "Dude – I've been locked up for _months_. Let's go out!"

He didn't miss the weary, worried glances exchanged by the newly engaged couple.

"Dean..." Sam sighed.

"Just for a few hours, man," Dean offered. "Play some pool, have a few beers. You and Jess can have a break from _me_."

Jess's eyes hardened.

"You wanna go another round?" she warned.

Dean turned his palms up, his fingers curving up and inviting, urging forward in a 'come and get it' motion.

"Give it your best shot, Tinkerbelle."

"Dean, I don't think it's a good idea," Sam said wearily. "The demon's still out there and it's looking for you."

"All the more reason for me to be on the move, Sammy!" Dean's eyes were bright, his face hopeful. "You know, hide in plain sight. Stayin' here we're just sittin' ducks, man."

"And this has nothing to do with the fact that you're feeling stir crazy?" Sam queried.

Dean snorted.

"Course it does," he admitted. "But it doesn't mean I'm wrong. Look, I think we could all use a night out. Just a few hours of some good clean fun."

It was Sam's turn to snort.

"There's nothing clean about your kind of fun."

"Well you're right about that," Dean admitted, grinning wistfully at memories of some good dirty fun he'd had in times past. "But I promise I'll stay out of trouble." And it was so many kinds of wrong that he was making concessions to his little brother to stay out of trouble, as if he had to behave for Sam, as if Sam was the one in charge.

"I don't know, Dean..."

"Just for a couple of hours," Dean wheedled. "You'll feel better – I'll feel better. Everyone wins!"

Sam worried his lip as he considered.

"Maybe we should go just for a little while," Jess conceded, for which Dean was eternally grateful. "I think it would be good for Dean."

"See, Sammy?" Dean grinned. "It'll be good for me. A few hours to have some fun, reconnect with my little brother again..." He was genuinely smiling now, crinkling his eyes at the corners, and he did that so rarely Sam could feel his resolve melting. "Huh, Sammy, whaddya say?" He gave Sam a hearty slap on the shoulder, grinning too big for Sam's heart to do anything other than swell up.

"Huh?"

It was that final 'Huh?', with that damnable grin, and those too bright eyes, that did him in. Sam cursed his brother for being so charming, remembered reading somewhere that charm was a weapon in most serial killers' arsenals, that it was always safest to consider the word 'charming' as a verb instead of an adjective – you're being charmed; this man is using charm against you, his mind screamed.

"Haha! Excellent!" Dean beamed, clapping his hands together in victory and rising from the table with a loud chair squeak. "I'm just gonna grab a quick shower and then we can head out."

Sometimes Sam found he had no defences against his brother, and wondered idly if he fared any better in the other reality. Somehow he doubted it.

888

It was time to dismantle the clock. That incessant ticking, like the steady clicking of a pendulum striking doom on each swing, a metronome tick-tocking the minutes and hours and days that brought him further from his revenge when it was supposed to be bringing him closer. He might have lost his mind – was fairly sure he had – because the closer he got to breaking Dean Winchester the closer he came to an eternity in Hell. A sane man would run from that, right?

But Edgar Walpole was so far removed from that. With nothing but the taste of ash on his tongue, bile in his throat, and tar in his heart for the past four years, this world and all its charms held no meaning to him anymore. Revenge was all he could think about: what he breathed, ate, slept, dreamed. It stalked his conscious and unconscious mind. He wanted to feel his enemies' pain – wanted to taste it on his tongue, that sickly copper of blood, the fluid bubbling rush of someone else's anguish. He wanted to feel bones crack beneath his fingers, he wanted to see a soul flee in utter ruin and despair. He wanted to _crush_ the Winchesters, starting with that cocky sonofabitch Dean for daring to touch his daughter, for dragging her into this nightmare for nothing more than the satisfaction of his own rapacious lust. He wanted to watch him writhe and squirm and beg and break, and then he wanted it all to bleed onto John – the original sinner.

And as the clock ticked mutinously overhead, Walpole could feel it all slipping through his fingers, could feel his chances passing him by as the Winchesters no doubt worked on a way to reverse the wish. They were running out of time: the demon was running out of time. If they didn't catch Dean soon, they might lose their chance forever.

He'd been so close! They'd had him, had been breaking him, had almost broken him. Walpole had seen it in his eyes – the look of one lost, desperate, afraid. All of Dean Winchester's bravado gone and a frightened little boy left in his place, begging, crying for his mom who burned on the ceiling in his living nightmare of drug-induced hallucinations. He'd cried for his father to save him, begged for him to come and rescue him. But most of all, he'd cried for his little brother Sammy. So pitiful, so broken, that desperate need to protect his baby brother, and some already damaged party of his psyche that felt he'd let the kid down. It had been too delicious to watch him squirm in his restraints, crying out at visions in the dark that only he could see, begging for forgiveness for having let Sammy burn. It made Walpole shiver with the need to bring him back to the brink and push him over into oblivion. Just one push...

The trilling of the phone at his desk startled him from his dark, brooding thoughts. He answered it with a snap.

"What?"

"You don't sound happy to hear from me," the demon teased from the other line. "When I come bearing good news and everything."

"You've got him?" Walpole asked, daring to hope, his breath catching in his throat in anticipation.

There was a heavy sigh from the other line.

"Not yet," it admitted. "But I've enlisted some... help, you could say, from someone who's been keeping tabs on the Winchesters for quite some time now. Seems they've been on Hell's radar for a few decades and some of my friends downstairs were more than happy to offer their services."

"Then you know where he is now?" he pressed.

"We do," the demon assured him, its borrowed voice confident. "We're closing in to collect tomorrow, if you cared to join us."

"Just tell me where I need to be." And it came out as a hiss, because he could feel himself coiling like a spring, ready to let loose with fangs and venom, ready to sink his teeth in and drink deep until there was nothing left but ash and bile.

"I thought you might," the demon simpered. "Then you'll want to take the next flight to Lawrence, Kansas, my friend. Soon enough we'll all be collecting what's ours."

And Dr. Edgar Walpole sighed deeply in contentment when he disconnected the call, feeling relief at the demon's words with all that it signified – even Hell. Because Hell he could stand. In fact, part of him longed for it. It was knowing that the Winchesters were out there that ate at his soul and denied him rest. He longed to see this wish to its conclusion. Would happily pay the price.

888

Sam didn't want to admit it but he was having a good time. The music was a little loud, and the bar a little too crowded and entirely too smoky, but the atmosphere was light, the mood boisterous and rowdy in a friendly kind of way, and Dean was smiling at a hundred watts, resting leisurely against the bar with a beer in one hand and a very pretty redhead nuzzling against his side, whispering something into his ear. She'd discovered him earlier, bent over the pool table lining up a shot, and had won her way to his heart (or more accurately, his groin) by giving his ass a hearty squeeze and ruining his shot.

Sam grinned despite himself at the way his brother threw his head back and laughed at whatever naughty joke his flavour of the evening had just shared with him. It was nice seeing him so relaxed. Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother relaxed. He tried not to think about it, but his mind was replaying a constant loop of images of Dean dressed in hospital clothes, pale and desolate, eyes staring vacantly ahead, arms and legs strapped to a bed. And that had been reality for the last four years, hadn't it? As far as Sam knew, that's what Dean's life had been – life inside concrete walls and barred windows, medicated and restrained and enclosed... _trapped_. It didn't matter that the Dean he saw before him came from a different life. The horror of Golden Brooke, and Stafford before it, had been reality for Sam – Dean's life as an inmate and patient behind those cold walls with calculating and concerned doctors had been reality for Sam.

Which made moments like this one bittersweet. He wanted to give Dean this moment because he felt all too keenly how much he needed it. More than that, though, he felt he owed it to him. Reality or not, illusion or fabrication, it had been real for Sam. And he needed to see Dean happy right now, needed to see him smiling and socializing and laughing and interacting like a normal human being.

But there was a demon out there looking to drag Dean back to that hell and that threat was all too real. And when Sam saw little Miss Redhead take Dean by the hand as if to lead him out of the bar, Sam felt a spike of panic stab him through the gut.

"Ummm... Do you think we should...?" Jess trailed off, giving her boyfriend a rather insistent nudge in Dean's direction.

"Yeah," Sam replied.

With his long legs he was at Dean's side, standing like a barricade of man meat, within seconds, Jess flanking him on his left. Dean's smile faltered for a fraction of a second, his gaze swinging briefly toward his companion and then back to Sam with a question in his eyes.

"Hey man," Sam said, attempting at casual. "We were thinking maybe it was time to head back." He smiled politely at the girl with the flaming hair and tried not to grimace when she winked at him.

"Well _we_ were thinking of heading back to my place," she purred in Dean's ear.

Dean licked his lips lazily, blinking up owlishly at Sam with raised eyebrows and a smug grin.

"You heard the lady," he said, patting his baby brother on the shoulder in dismissal. "I'll catch up with you two later."

It was Sam's firm grip on his shoulder that stopped him.

"Maybe some other time, Dean," Sam warned, shaking his head. "Remember we've got an early start tomorrow."

"I'll be back in time," Dean shrugged. "No worries."

_No worries my ass!_

Sam huffed and rolled his eyes.

"Probably not the best idea, Dean," he said, aiming for cryptic because every warning he wanted to give sounded completely insane. "You going off alone..."

"But I won't be alone," Dean joked, grinning lewdly and snagging his redheaded friend by the waist. "I'll have Angie here –"

"Amy!"

"—Amy here to keep me company." He grinned like a five year-old with the spoon of cookie batter. "And don't worry, we are All Systems Go." And winked.

Sam wondered if this was some kind of alternate reality brotherly code for something, looked at Jess for help, but was at a loss when she merely raised her shoulders in confusion and shrugged.

"You know...," Dean said, more quietly this time in a half-hearted attempt at privacy. "With the side effects... How we were worried about..." He coughed uncomfortably and lowered his voice. "... the dysfunction...?"

Sam's cheeks blushed.

"I wasn't actually all that worried, Dean," he griped.

"Thanks," Dean said dryly. He gave his baby brother a hard look for a moment, in order to fully convey how sorely disappointed he was in him for failing to share the burden of fear that Dean might have been struck impotent. "Anyway," rolling his eyes and plastering on his trademark grin. "Turns out it was nothing to worry about. We're good to go."

Sam didn't want to know how Dean knew he was 'good to go' – had an idea and felt himself blushing again, noticed that Jess was blushing too – and schooled his face into the most put-upon, bitchy scowl he could muster.

Amy the redhead giggled like bubbling champagne and leaned in to nibble at Dean's ear.

"Hmmm... I bet you _are_ good to go," she cooed.

"Much as I'm sure you'd like to take her for a test run, Dean," Sam said, exasperated, "now's really not a good time."

"Besides," Jess added, "wasn't the waitress this morning enough of a ride for you?"

And Sam decided he was going to kiss her, among other of her favourite naughty things, as soon as they had a moment alone together, for the immediate dousing effect her comment had on Dean's companion.

"Waitress this morning?" she asked archly, pulling away in scandalized outrage.

"What?" Dean scoffed good naturedly. "Don't listen to them! They're Mormons – they don't believe in sex before marriage. Fun is like illegal for them."

But the damage was done. Apparently Amy the redhead wasn't too keen on being Dean's second lay of the day and the trail of red hair flapping against her back as she stormed away was the last any of them saw of her. Dean turned to face Sam and Jess with a slow and steady glare.

"Do you know what kind of Puritan scourge is going to be unleashed on the world when you two start breeding?" Dean hissed, then seemed to realize what he'd said as his eyes opened wide with what looked like panic and regret. Deep regret.

"Forget it," he muttered, finishing his beer in one long pull and slamming the empty bottle on the bar top a little too loudly. "Let's head back."

888

He tried so hard not to, fought with every last nerve ending in him, resisted with gritted teeth and eyes squeezed shut tight, but it was a losing battle. Termites had invaded his mind, eating away through layers of carefully constructed thought-walls and burrowing deep into his subconscious. There was no use fighting it, and he found he couldn't if he tried. Feeling the warm, soothing, steady cascade of water spouting down on his head and shoulders, Dean began to hum.

"_It's the final countdown_..." he sang quietly, suppressing the urge and failing once again as he sang a high pitched 'Doodoo doo doo. Doodoo doo doo doo.'

"_It's the final countdown_..." he repeated, adding more gusto to the line because the song called for it.

He wished he could make himself stop, because the song sucked ass and shouldn't be in his head to begin with. But he'd stepped into the shower this morning with that feeling in the pit of his stomach – the feeling that was never wrong – that told him that the clock on this timer to doom was about to run out. Somehow he knew it. Maybe it was his connection with the demon that told him things were going to come to a head real soon, or maybe it was his own finely honed instincts as a hunter that just warned him when danger was seriously nigh.

Dean knew it was all coming down today, could feel it in his skin.

So he hummed the stupid song because it was stuck in his head, thinking how wrongly appropriate "The Final Countdown" was in matching his mood. He felt strangely pumped, almost hyper, but nervous at the same time. He was raring for a fight, wanted to slam his fists into something evil and pound it until it played dead or (better yet) _died_.

"You almost done in there?" Sam's voice called through the door, the preceding closed-fisted thumps to which caused Dean to jump nearly out of his skin.

"Yeah, in a minute!" Dean called back, turning his face up into the spray. He'd almost forgotten how awesome showers were, having endured several months of being manhandled into and out of his clothes by the asylum staff and scrubbed down in a lather of brusque hands and soap like a soiled child. He shuddered at the unwelcome memories and turned his back to the water, enjoying the warmth as it spread through tired muscles.

Dean took his time squeezing copious amounts of Jess's girly body wash onto his palm, taking in the aroma of coconut with a chuckle at the thought of walking out of here smelling like a beach bum. But the body wash was smooth and foamed into a soft lather that almost tickled his skin and God it felt good to be washing himself again, to be in control of himself again. Tried not to think about the possibility of this being his last shower as a free man, tried instead to visualize stepping out of the bathroom to find Sammy seated at the table near the window, hunched over his laptop doing research on their latest hunt. _'I think I may have found something, Dean,'_ he heard his brother's voice say in his head. _'Those swimmers that went missing in Mississippi? All of them had been to see a palm reader named...'_

Fuck, it didn't matter what they were hunting or where they were. It only mattered that they were together, where they were supposed to be, fighting evil like they were supposed to. And Dean had to get back there.

He sighed heavily, wishing now that he hadn't allowed his mind to stray back to those awful moments at Golden Brooke. Memories ghosted over his flesh, of his wrists and ankles in restraints, the feel of the bed pressing solidly against his back as he fought against being bound, being helpless. The prick of needles breeching his skin. The rush of chemicals flooding his bloodstream. The electric fire of jolts of electricity searing through his skull...

And suddenly he wasn't remembering anymore. He was there. Or rather, it was here. Pain. In his head, firing through his synapses, jolting through his nerve endings. He felt himself gasp – didn't hear it, couldn't hear it – as all awareness of his body and its proximity to anything was seared away with the blinding pain lancing through his skull. He thought he felt a crack, the solid impact of hitting something, but couldn't be sure. And there was copper in his mouth: blood.

He wished he could pass out, or snap out of it, or wake up. He wished he could call out for Sam.

888

Sam smiled in relief when Dean finally stopped singing. He wanted to strangle the jerk for putting that stupid song in his head, and also for everything that the song implied. His big brother thought that this was the end, that either they would succeed today in setting reality back to rights, or Dean would be caught and would be dragged back to a lifelong incarceration at the asylum. Sam could see it in his eyes, could see how it bled from his body in rippling waves of tension. He was like a tightly coiled spring, ready to leap into action, ready to fight to the death. And that terrified Sam right down to his core.

"He'll be okay, Sam," Jess whispered from her seat on the side of their bed where she was dangling a curling iron over one shoulder and angling it to curl the ends of her long blonde locks.

"Yeah," Sam said absently. And he wished he believed her. But he was afraid like he'd never been.

Breaking Dean out of Golden Brooke had been nerve-racking, terrifying, but at the same time exhilarating. Then they'd had a plan, and numerous people taking part in the action. They'd worked like a well-oiled machine, pulling off the impossible without a hitch. But now it was just Sam and Jess and Dean and only Dean knew how to handle the supernatural and Dean alone wouldn't be enough to fight against this demon and whatever resources it had at its disposal. Sam knew it: Dean knew it. And it left Sam feeling so helpless because all he wanted to do was tuck his big brother away some place safe where the darkness would never find him.

A long squeak of skin against wet porcelain, followed by a thud and a choked groan, had Sam rushing to the bathroom door with his heart lodged in his throat.

"Dean!" he shouted, pounding desperately, straining his ears to hear over the sound of the loud shower spray.

Nothing.

"DEAN!" Louder this time, demanding, insistent. Desperate. "_DEAN!_"

He forced the knob but the door was locked.

'I'll kick it down!' he thought savagely, raising his leg at the knee to force the door open, but Jess's hand on his shoulder made him pause.

"I got it," she whispered urgently and he sighed in relief when he saw that she'd already twisted the hook end of a coat hanger into a straight line, working the tip into the round hole lock on the bathroom door and angling it until she felt that pressure spot inside, felt it give a little as she pushed at it. Her long slender fingers twisted the knob and it turned, opened, gave them admittance to whatever mess lay inside.

Sam tore the curtain aside and gasped at the sight of his brother lying sprawled rigid on the floor of the tub, his face twisted in a tight grimace of pain, his short blondish hair plastered wet on his forehead, his back arched and his limbs twitching. It looked like he was having a seizure, but not. Behind his head, along the base of white tile where it met porcelain, a steady trickle of fresh, wet blood dripped onto Dean's naked shoulder.

"Towel!" Sam shouted, and Jess was already there with it in her hand, draping it over Dean's body to give him some privacy. She switched the water off and crouched behind Sam, giving him some distance but hovering close enough to be of use if she was needed.

"What's the matter with him?" she asked in a quiet voice.

Sam shook his head and bit his lip, watching his brother's convulsions as the bile rose in his throat.

"I dunno..." he muttered. "I dunno..."

He was about to tell Jess to dial 911 when his brother suddenly stilled, the twitching stopped. Allowed himself a modicum relief at the steady rising and falling of Dean's chest as he breathed, but was tense like a live wire nonetheless.

"Dean...?"

No reaction. He cleared his throat and tried again, louder this time.

"Dean?"

Eyelids fluttered, slivers of green peeking out behind those long sooty lashes. Dean blinked twice, slowly, as colour rushed to his face, flushing him in a blush of red. He gasped and flew into a sitting position, his arms flailing, his eyes wild.

"NO!" he shouted hoarsely. "Nono! Don't, please!"

The tub squeaked loudly as he twisted away from his brother's helping hands. Sam gulped at the smear of blood on the wall where Dean's head had just been, where it had obviously impacted with the wall when he fell.

"Dean," Sam placated. "Hey, Dean, please, it's just me. It's just Sam."

Wide, terror-filled green eyes darted about the room, from left to right and right to left again, fast at first but then slower, pausing on Jess and then, eventually, on Sam.

"Sam?" Dean croaked, blinking in confusion. Sam tried not to panic at the red staining his brother's mouth.

"Yeah, Dean," Sam whispered. "I'm here."

"Ow!" Dean groaned, placing a prune-fingered hand to the back of his head and wincing in pain. "Sonofabitch! Bit my tongue..."

"You fell," Sam explained patiently. "Hit your head and... I think, had some kind of fit...?"

Dean pouted, looking cranky and confused as he massaged his achy, bleeding scalp.

"Dean Winchester doesn't do fits, Sammy," he grumbled and furrowed his brow in concentration. Sam tried not to grin: Brainless-Hot-Guy appeared to be back. "No, I think... I thought..." He pursed his lips and his eyes went kind of vacant. "It was like... electricity, in my brain... I thought I was _there_ again... that they were..." He coughed, cleared his throat, and then firmly clamped his mouth shut.

"It's okay," Sam assured him. "It might have been a flashback. Or possibly even another side effect of the withdrawal."

When Dean nearly went cross-eyed trying to give his little brother an uncomprehending look, Sam humoured him with an explanation.

"They call them 'after-shocks,'" Sam said. "Happens with some types of anti-depressants. I read about it while you were, uh, recovering."

"Awesome," Dean exclaimed joylessly. Then he seemed to finally take notice of the fact that Jessica was in the room. "Well hello," he beamed with false enthusiasm. He made a show of looking around the bathroom, his gaze travelling up the shower wall, from one side to the other, and then taking in his own nakedness, with the meagre wet towel covering him, and then returned with a tight-lipped smile to Jessica. "Enjoying the show?"

"I'll just... go out there," she said delicately, standing from her crouched position and scurrying out of the bathroom in all haste, closing the door behind her to give Dean some privacy.

"Lovely girl you've got there," Dean said dryly. "When she's not trying to grope me she's standing around peeping to see me nekkid."

Sam rolled his eyes and huffed.

"She was just trying to help, Dean."

"You keep telling yourself that, little brother." He was about to attempt to stand up but then thought better of it, giving his brother a hearty shove. "You wanna maybe leave so I can put some clothes on or what?"

Sam was about to move but hesitated.

"But you fell and hit your –"

"I'm _fine_, Sam," Dean barked. "Now go. Give a guy some freakin' privacy!"

"You sure you're okay?" Sam pressed, pausing at the door. "Should I get some ice for that? Or maybe you need some stitches?"

"Nah," Dean scoffed. "I'm good. Really. Now go! The sooner I get outta here the sooner we can get back to Missouri's. We waste any more time and she'll be threatening to beat all of us with her wooden spoon."

**End Notes:**

The thing with Jess might have felt a bit over the top, but I wanted to show her attempting to reach Dean in some way that he wouldn't run away screaming from. We didn't see much of Jess on the show, but from what we did see of her I gathered that she was a really solid kind of chick. So this was my attempt to show how a chick like that would try to relate with a guy like Dean.

He doesn't make it easy.


End file.
